Echoes of Memories
by AelysAlthea
Summary: Will is a med student. He is an average Joe, if he recognises he's smart. He lives with his mother, loves his studies, his friends, his life. He just doesn't know that it's not quite the life he's always lived. Nico is his silent protected. An unseen shadow, a guardian angel even, fending off the creatures that threaten to tear Will's fragile peace apart...
1. Chapter 1 - Shattered Peace

**Summary** : Will is a med student. He is an average Joe, if he recognises he's smart. He lives with his mother, loves his studies, his friends, his _life_. He just doesn't know that it's not quite the life he's always lived.

Nico is his silent protected. An unseen shadow, a guardian angel even, fending off the creatures that threaten to tear Will's fragile peace apart. He's a warrior and a fighter. But even he can't maintain such guardianship forever. Something's got to give.

And it does. To Nico, in one of the worst ways possible.

~Written for PJO Secret Santa 2016, for probablypartiallyinsane~

 **Rating** : T

 **Tags:** Nico di Angelo/Will Solace, Memory Loss, Bittersweet

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 **Disclaimer** : Thank you, Rick Riordan, for creating the series that has been my life for several stories already. All compliments go to you, and I make no profit from this story but for my own satisfaction :)

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 **Chapter 1: Shattered Peace**

It was a perfectly normal day. Almost too normal, Will would have to admit, except for the fact that 'normal' in his opinion was a blessing. A little bit of the norm in the craziness of his student life wouldn't go astray. Classes passed without a hitch, his laptop actually held up for once without the battery throwing a tantrum, and he even finished the day a little early. The sun was shining and the chill of autumn only just beginning to touch it. All was good.

Until the giant, flying cat attacked him.

At nearly five o'clock, the sun hadn't truly begun to take itself from the sky, inching its way towards the horizon yet still visible over the heads of the surrounding skyscrapers. The air was thick with the sound of traffic, even positioned off a main road as the College of Physicians and Surgeons was. Will stepped into the afternoon coolness, unnecessarily shucking his jacket higher onto his shoulders as he readjusted the thousand-and-one book bags and laptop in his arms.

At his side, Cindy Hart chattered at an exceptional pace. She always spoke at a million miles an hour, but today was even more rapid-fire than usual. Will put it down to her enthusiasm for finishing up just minutes before they usually did. Cindy was like that, he'd come to realise in the years since he'd first met her. She took the little joys in life and thrived upon them. A lot of people could learn something from Cindy.

"… not like I dislike BHD or anything," she was saying, swiping at her dark hair as a gust of wind tugged her fringe loose. Every day she wore a practical bun that was always more than half-freed from its confines by the end of the day. "It's just that I think Dr Derby could be a little more, ah…"

"Inclined to teach rather than simply lecture in a monotone?" Will offered as they made their way down the steps at the front of their college. It was amidst a see of sea of similarly fleeing students and as such a bit of a scramble on the not-quite-damp stone of the stairwell.

Cindy flashed him her wide smile that always showed a seemingly impossible number of teeth. "Hit the nail on the head, Will."

"I do that."

"It's not that I _dis_ like him or anything –"

"You don't have to convince me, Cindy. I don't think you actually hate anyone in the world."

Cindy frowned thoughtfully as she readjusted her own bags. Will sympathised. He'd come to realise that it was the life and struggle of every med student to be weighed down by more than they could realistically carry. Or at least the ones that prepared themselves for anything their lecturers or tutors could throw at them. Will often thought he should just bring a trolley to college.

"You know, I think hate is a strong word," Cindy said.

"I rest my case," Will said with a smile of his own. Too nice. Cindy was way too nice.

"I suppose it's necessary, though," Cindy sighed. "I mean, let's face it, half the job of a student is to ensure you know the content even without the lecturers drilling it into you."

"I think you're undermining the job of the lecturers."

"I'm just saying."

"I know you are."

"Students should _want_ to learn. They shouldn't need convincing."

Will smirked. "And yet here you are trying to convince me, even though five seconds ago you were complaining about BHD."

Cindy frowned again, though it was with a shadow of a smile. "I'm not complaining. I'll be the first to admit that it's not only Derby's fault. I'm hanging onto my grades in BHD by my fingertips."

Curving around the main building of the college, they left one-sixty-eighth street and passed onto Broadway. The sound of traffic was stronger here, peak hour adding its share of tooting horns and chattering pedestrians to the mix. They made their way in the direction of the bus shelter, weaving amongst businessmen or women and fellow students with Will more of a listening ear than an active participant in their exchange. He didn't mind. Cindy could chatter all she wanted to. Will had always been one to do most of the talking in his other friendships. He understood the propensity to speak almost without thought should a listening ear allow it.

They drew towards the bus stop, slowing in step to lean against the naked skeleton of a tree that stood guard beside the red and blue signpost with its caricature of a bus printed high for visibility. Will took the opportunity to lower half of his bags to the ground; buses came fairly regularly at this time in the afternoon, but his shoulders demanded the reprieve.

Cindy still chattered animatedly, though the conversation had shifted somewhat from where it had been. "And I told him that I didn't need him to, but he's the sort of person that insists upon doing something even if it's absolutely unnecessary."

Will rolled a shoulders, massaging his neck with one hand as he leant against the tree. "What's wrong with having him come and pick you up from college if he wants to? It's better than taking the bus."

Cindy sighed in fond exasperation. "Because it's unnecessary. He's my boyfriend, not a taxi service. And traffic is hell at this time of the afternoon." As if to punctuate her words, she gestured to the street that was indeed fairly packed with puttering vehicles.

"Maybe he's just being nice?"

"Maybe he's still stuck in the stage where he thinks he needs to do everything for me or I'll threaten to break up with him." Cindy's frown suggested such was far from happening.

"I think you're a bit past the honeymoon period," Will said, shaking his head with a smile.

"Apparently not."

"Three years isn't long enough?" At Cindy's amused shrug, Will chuckled. "You've got that boy whipped, Cindy."

Cindy's beaming, toothy smile flashing once more. "I have at that, haven't I?" The way she said it suggested it was mutual dedication.

Her phone buzzed a second later and shifting her bags and folders in her hands – Will silently took her laptop from her hands to her grateful smile – Cindy awkwardly juggled it from her pocket. Will didn't need her to flash the screen in his direction to know it was her boyfriend Kevin; Cindy's smile said it all.

"Hey, babe," she said as she pressed it to her ear. "What's up?" Silence for a moment but for the background noise of the traffic, the conversation of the students standing a little away from Will. Then, "I told you not to."

Will smiled to himself, dropping his gaze down to the laptop to hide his amusement. Cindy and Kevin were sort of an adorable couple. They were both so infatuated that it would have been almost sickening to witness except for the fact that they both deserved one another so completely. Will thought one could learn a lot about healthy relationships by watching the two of them.

Or at least Will felt as much, even if he didn't put any of those learned skills into practice. He wasn't interested in dating, or at least not at the moment. Whenever anyone asked him why that was, he claimed it was because of school, because his studies filled the place another person would, and that he didn't think it was fair on them. Which was true, to a degree. True – alongside the fact that it didn't _feel_ right. Will had thought about it, had even felt a touch of interest in the occasional fellow student or friend of a friend, but it hadn't been right. For whatever reason, a reason Will couldn't quite discern, it always felt like he was cheating to think of another person in such a way. Which was a ridiculous notion but… was it possible to consider oneself unfaithful by putting a relationship before school studies? That was the only possible explanation Will could think up for why he felt as he did.

"… don't mind, then thanks," Cindy was saying. She was smiling brightly again. "I'll wait down on the corner, then? Yeah, okay. See you in a few." Hanging up, she slipped her phone back into her jacket pocket, momentarily rearranged her scarf to sit more comfortably, and took her laptop back from Will with a nod of thanks.

"He's picking you up, then?" Will asked.

"He's picking me up," Cindy said with an exasperated sigh that didn't fool Will for a moment. "He's actually only about a minute away."

"Damn hide of him, offering to pick you up like that," Will teased.

"I know, right? Just can't seem to teach an old dog new tricks."

"I thought he was only a year older than you?"

Cindy smiled at Will impishly before shrugging. Turning to continue down Broadway, she tipped her head at him. "Want a lift? I'm sure we could swing by your place on the way if you'd like."

Will shook his head and waved the offer aside. "My house is literally in the opposite direction to yours."

"Doesn't matter. Kevin won't mind."

It was true. Kevin really wouldn't. It was Will who minded. "You'd end up getting home later than if you took the bus."

"Doesn't matter, Will. We don't mind if –"

"It's okay." Will waved her reattempt aside again with a gesture down the road in the direction of the typical corner pick-up Kevin sat at a little down from the traffic lights. "Hurry up or you'll be late."

Cindy sighed again, shaking her head. "Alright. Just this time though, Will. Next time we're dropping you home."

"Yeah, sure thing," Will said, even if he didn't mean it. "See you tomorrow."

"See you." Cindy turned and started off at a trot down the road. She'd disappeared within the throngs of pedestrians within seconds.

Sighing, Will slumped back against the tree once more and turned his attention down the one-way street in search of the predicted oncoming bus. It might have been nice to finish early that afternoon, but he still caught the same bus as he always did. It didn't really make all that much of difference in the long run what time he finished. Plucking his phone from his pocket, Will spared it a glance and noted the time. Less than five minutes. He turned his attention back down the street in wait.

It was because he was staring so listlessly that Will noticed the bird at all. Or at least it looked like a bird at first, hawk-shaped though what a hawk was doing in central New York was a mystery. Until it drew towards him and he saw that it was definitely, _definitely_ not a hawk. More than that, it was charging straight for him.

The unexpectedness of a giant winged creature spearing through the air towards him briefly threw Will for a loop. He barely managed to duck out of the way before it crashed into him. The force of its flight resounded in a heavy _THUNK_ in the tree trunk behind him and a shark, incredibly loud shriek of surprise and indignation followed

Knees jarring on the concrete sidewalk, Will snapped his attention over his shoulder towards the creature, only to feel his eyes widen and mouth flop open in shock. That was – no, that was _definitely_ not a hawk. It clambered for purchase in the branches of the tree, wings beating and skinny legs that rippled with muscle scrambling. When it righted itself, it turned towards Will and loosed another indignant shriek.

It was a cat. A bird cat. A cat with bird wings. Except that it was larger than a cat, more the size of a panther and just as black, with enormous wings sprouting from its shoulder blades and narrowed red eyes. It balanced precariously on the branches that sagged beneath its weight, tail whipping in agitation as its wickedly sharp beak snapped with another growling squawk. At Will. A snarl directed straight at Will.

Will stared for a long moment in growing horror, confusion and… and something else that felt strangely like resigned frustration, almost anticipation. He didn't get the chance to consider what that feeling meant, however, for the cat-bird loosed another snarling shriek before launching itself from the tree straight for him.

There were shouts from behind him, more surprised than fearful, but Will didn't spare those around him a glance. Heart in his mouth, he scrambled on hands and knees out away from the creature, flinging himself in a dodge just in to avoid its smash into the ground where Will had been sprawled seconds before. Book bags scattered where he'd abandoned them. Another shriek, then it leapt for him once more.

Will ducked out of the way. He rolled to his feet, then ducked again as the cat-bird sprung over him in a mad flap of wings and cruelly snapping beak, talons bared with the clear intention of gutting its prey. Will didn't know what it was, let alone why it was so savagely targeting him, but he didn't think about that. He didn't have time to think about it, barely registered the surrounding shouts and cries of "What's happening?" and "Crazy bird!" as he ducked and dodged even rolling in a twist on his shoulder to avoid with the best of his ability. Bird? It wasn't a fucking bird. It was – it was something else and it was _clearly_ insane.

How Will managed to avoid the crazed creature at all he didn't know. He barely had the headspace to think about what he was doing, about why it seemed to be attacking him specifically, and simply let his body respond for him. Another duck as the cat-bird flung itself over his head. A roll to the side as it swiped out with sharp talons. Dancing backwards as he stumbled to his feet to avoid the rabid snapping of its beak. Quite without realising it, Will found himself throwing a frantic glance around himself for a weapon. Something. Anything to bat the creature away with. A stick? Even a stick would do.

He didn't have time for that, however. Will had just spared a glance over his shoulder towards the tree in the vein hope of snatching one of it's branches to ward off the crazy animal who only God knew why was hell-bent on gouging his eyes out. Only for a second, however, before the cat-bird reared on its hind legs, narrowed its ruddy gaze further and, with a violent slap of its wings, launched itself towards him. Will didn't even have time to duck.

As it turned out, he didn't need to. Someone ducked him for him. Will's legs were kicked from beneath him and he hit the ground hard. Yelping in surprise and only just managing to catch himself on his hands, Will spun a disoriented glance towards the creature. Only to have his line of sight blocked by the figure of a young man.

He wasn't tall. He wasn't big. If anything, he was a little diminutive and would be largely unobtrusive in any other context; black hair, black clothes a little worn, skinny with his olive skin pale. He was half-turned, planted between Will and the creature, and as Will drew his wide-eyed stare up towards him, heart thumping at a roaring speed in his chest, the man spared him a glance. A dark eyed glance, a frown that was almost a scowl but eased from what looked to be almost concern into frustration. Then he turned away.

For whatever reason, for whatever unknown, incomprehensible reason, Will suddenly felt a rush of relief flood through him for that barest glance.

He didn't have a second to try to understand it. Will barely had a second to recognise that relief at all, for in an instant the man was turning fully from him to face the creature that had somehow been flung a dozen paces from them. Will caught sight of the ring of onlookers, surprise still apparent in staring eyes and skittering edging for a better view where the scene was stationed on the curb-side. Then his attention was thoroughly distracted by the sword in the young man's hand.

A sword. He was carrying a fucking sword.

Will didn't get the chance to voice his stupefied surprise. He didn't get a chance for more than a further widening of his eyes and a stunned blink. The young man took a step towards the cat-bird and raised his long, black sword in his hand. When he spoke it was in a harsh spit of something that to Will's ears sounded vaguely Italian before his words morphed into English a moment later. "… don't ever give up, do you? I thought it would have been clear by now. Fuck. Off."

He spoke in a low voice, a dangerous voice that was nothing if not threatening and sent a shiver down Will's spine. The creature across from him, lowered to all fours, hunched at his words, beak snapping as if in retaliative reply and tail whipping more sharply. They faced off for a bare moment in which Will only glanced between them, past the man's widely planted legs and then back up at him. Everything from his stance to the very obvious weapon suggested he knew what he was doing, regardless of the unexpectedness of it all. He knew very well and he could handle himself.

Will's assumption was made good an instant later. The creature loosed another shriek before it leapt for the young man, and in an instant there was a whirlwind of activity. The man spun and ducked, dodging like a dancer around his partner with sword sweeping. The sound of metal on metal rung through the air as the creature's obsidian talons struck the glossy length of the black sword, rebounded, struck again.

Will didn't move from where he'd sprawled on the ground, staring at the battle that raged before him. He couldn't move had he wanted to, could only stare. He hadn't the chance to be scared for his life as a creature jumped straight from a fairy tales had appeared and tried to attack him, but even now he didn't feel fear. There was something else in its place. A throbbing, pounding rush of adrenaline and something else on top of that. A sharpness. A keenness. An urge to –

To throw himself into the fight. Will registered it as ridiculous even as he recognised the feeling for what it was.

He didn't get the chance to act upon his irrational inclination, however. The man in black with his sword that spun almost too fast to see – it was incredible to watch, breathtaking and just a little awe-inspiring – definitely knew what he was doing. Dancing, leaping out of the way, then throwing himself on the offensive, he made short work of the creature. A swing to bat aside the reaching claws, another sidestep to dodge the stumble the creature made as a result, and then the sword was descending. It swung so hard, so fast, that the air whistled with its passage in an audible _swoosh_ , and then it was over. The blade sheered through the creature and then…

Dust. As soon as the man's sword sliced through it, the creature burst into dust. Just like that, it was there and then it was gone. The man carried the motion through, stepping to complete the strike, and then steadied himself. He wasn't panting, didn't seem even slightly fazed or wearied by the fight. With a twirling sweep of his sword that seemed to brush aside the dust as it gradually fell to the ground, he made a flourish that somehow didn't seem pompous or unnecessarily extravagant and slipped the sword over his shoulder. Sheathing it, Will realised, as with a _snick_ the sword disappeared at his back.

Then the man's dark, frowning gaze turned towards Will and Will was caught. Not scared as he perhaps should have been given that he'd just seen not only a creature that was a sick sort of mix of mythology and violence but thence seen that creature neatly taken out but a sword-wielding warrior in skinny jeans and a bomber jacket. But he wasn't. He didn't feel scared. Will stared up at the man from his sprawl on the ground when he turned fully to face him.

He had a thin face, was indeed as pale as Will had first thought in his brief glance in a way that the diagnostic side of Will's brain informed him was likely a combination of nutritional deficiency and a lack of sun exposure. He got an impression of sharp features, large eyes impossibly dark and unreadable and mouth thinned in something that looked disapproving before the man was shaking his head in a disapproving manner that was entirely affronting given that he didn't look any older than Will was himself. Then he was turning away from him again.

"Honestly," Will caught the barest mutter of. "How you manage to get into trouble so often…"

Will didn't know what that meant. He didn't get the chance to ask either, for without waiting further, without pausing to explain just what the hell had happened, the man was striding away from him in the direction that Will himself had come from only minutes before. He only spared a moment to glare – yes, glare, as though the onlookers personally offended him – at those whispering around him and shooting visibly intimidated glances before clicking his tongue and pausing in step as they parted before him.

"Mind the birds of prey hanging around lately," he said shortly, quietly, somehow almost with a touch of boredom. "They're being weirdly aggressive for some reason." Then he strode through his audience's midst, head bowing and shoving his hands into his pockets, and headed in the vague direction of Will's college. Heads turned to watch him leave, having captivated not only Will but several other witnesses, and comprehending sighs of "Oh, I see," and "Maybe it's an early mating season and they're territorial?" sounding in his wake.

Then he was gone.

Will was left to stare with distinctly less comprehension than was voiced by those around him. He detachedly accepted the offered hands of assistance as those around him pulled him to his feet and helped him to collect his discarded book bags and dropped laptop. Birds of prey? Weirdly aggressive? Certainly the latter seemed accurate, but that thing, the thing that had just up and burst into dust when the man had sliced it with his fucking _sword_ – that wasn't any bird of prey that Will had ever seen before. Did no one else around him seem to realise that?

Nodding his head in gratitude to the helping hands, Will could only blink in mounting confusion as he slung his bags over his shoulder. He peered down the road in the wake of the disappeared young man until the bus drew up alongside the bus stop barely a minute later and even then walked in a daze of diffusing adrenaline and bemusement for what had just happened.

That, and the distinct impression that he'd known the man who had just saved him from a creature that Will's mind was detachedly labelling a gryphon from the distant childhood memories putting the pieces of the encounter together. He felt like he'd known the man, that he should have known him even if he couldn't place him.

Will thought of little else the entire trip home. In his mind's eye, what confronted him wasn't the admittedly terrifying and faintly glowing red eyes of the gryphon but the dark stare of the man as he spared him little more than a flat, passing glance. He felt like he should know him, but…

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Nico rounded the corner into one-sixty-eighth street, chin tucked and scowling. Fucking gryphons. Every monster should universally know by now to steer clear of one demigod in particular but gryphons apparently didn't have the higher-order thinking to realise that. Some of them simply didn't. That was where Nico came in. It was one of several reasons he stuck around at all.

Nearly two years and the first time he'd actually confronted Will was to save him from a monster attack? Well, Nico could think of worse ways for it to happen.

It shouldn't have happened at all, really. The monsters _should_ know: Will Solace was untouchable. Nico wasn't the only one to enforce that way of thinking, though he was perhaps the most consistent of the law enforcers. He was one of several who made it his job to ensure that any monster who even dared would swiftly lose their heads and be vanquished back to Tartarus before they could say "Oops".

It wasn't a bad way for the meeting to happen if it had to happen at all. Really, it wasn't, even if Nico had hoped that Will wouldn't see any monsters again. He knew it was an idealistic hoped. Even so, he regretted he had to show himself to Will, had to meet his eyes and attempt to pose a front of disregard and nonchalance. He could still feel the brutal ache in his chest as though he'd been punched by an iron fist.

Clenching his jaw, Nico slowed in step as a sound whispered on the edges of his hearing. Pausing, he drew his gaze upwards to the specks of darkness that from a distance could have been mistaken for a pair of hawks or some other bird of prey. Nico didn't mistake them. Gryphons rarely travelled alone. He'd been expecting more, just as he'd been expecting them to hone in upon the doors of the college that Will walked out of practically every day should they think to attack at all.

Reaching over his shoulders, Nico curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. He narrowed his gaze to a glare as the gryphons drew closer, drawing the blade with a clean, sharp ring. "Come on then, you bastards," he muttered, widening his stance in preparation. He didn't even spare a glance around himself for possible observers. The Mist would take care of them and any observations they might make. "There's no way in hell you're getting past me."

As soon as they were in striking distance, Nico attacked.

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A/N: So, first chapter! What did you think? Like it? Had potential? Or really didn't? Please let me know your thoughts in the reviews. Thank you for reading!


	2. Chapter 2 - Open Wounds

**Chapter 2: Open Wounds**

"Will you be coming in tomorrow, William?"

Will glanced towards the reception desk as he passed, awkwardly shrugging into his jacket around the rucksack slung over his shoulder. He paused and spared a smile for Maggie, the old woman with a short, greying bob and round, permanently rosy cheeks leaning forward slightly over the desk and gazing at him expectantly.

Will had known Maggie since he was a kid, and she was probably the only person on the face of the earth who called him 'William'. His mom had worked at Mount Sinai Emergency for years, and hence its halls had seen him racing their lengths like the child with ADHD that he was. He knew many of the nurses, a fair portion of the doctors and most of the receptionists by face if not by name at this point. And it wasn't only because he'd been volunteering there since the recent holidays, though that likely had something to do with it.

Looping his scarf around his neck – Martin up in oncology had said it was taking to a cold spell – Will nodded. "Most likely. I can't foresee any cataclysmic events arising to waylay me."

"Cataclysmic events?" Maggie said with an amused little smile. "My, seen a few of them, have you?"

"You could say that," Will replied with a dramatic sigh that was entirely unwarranted. Cataclysmic? There was absolutely nothing about his life as a med student living in the middle of New York that was anything quite so exciting. Not even when, but weeks before, he'd been attacked by something that by all rights shouldn't exist.

Will was still torn as to whether he should be trying to forget the encounter or relive it every second of the day.

With a wave towards Maggie, a parting shrug at her faintly chiding, "Make sure you spend some time for yourself, William. It's not healthy to be work, work, working all the time," and he was passing through the pristine and vibrantly illuminated reception and towards the doors of the hospital.

Martin had been right. Will was struck by a bitter chill as soon as he stepped outside, surprisingly crisp given it was only September, and he huddled into his jacket as he stepped into the cool evening. Darkness had fallen, the lights of the hospital radiating in a warm, yellow glow onto the turning bay just before the footpath. The sounds of distant traffic – distant, yet far from inaudible – chugged into the night air, the drone of a siren likely heading their way wailing above the thrum of engines and occasional beep of a horn.

Sniffing at the chill, strolling at a leisurely pace in deference to his protesting legs – it had been a long day, and tiresome, regardless of the fact that Will was volunteering and chose to undertake it – he tugged his phone from his pocket. Pausing in step, he flicked through a couple of messages before tapping into the call log and raising the phone to his ears. Turning absently, Will's gaze settled upon the overlarge letters of Mount Sinai posted above the entrance to the hospital as he listened.

 _"Learn to pick up your phone, Will, you slacker!"_ That sounded like Nathan's voice, loud and drawling as ever. _"Fuck but you're sporadic with your contactability. I you still haven't gotten back to me about whether you're free for the pub crawl tonight and I can't – oh, wait. Hah, sorry, I just remembered you were probably at the hospital. Sorry, mate, just gimme a call when you can."_

Beep. Will shook his head and erased the message. The smell of a cigarette wafted into his nose but he didn't bother glancing in the direction of the smoking area off to the side of the entrance. The next message played.

 _"Will, I'm picking up Chinese for dinner tonight from that place at the corner. Are you home? I thought you probably would be after work today, but I wasn't sure. Sorry I didn't swing by to see you, it was a madhouse and I was run off my feet…"_

Will idly kicked at the paved footpath as he listened to his mom talk her message as much to herself as to him. He didn't know why she was apologising. They missed one another more often than they were in the house together these days. Despite what Nathan, and Felice, and Evan might say, a big part of the reason other than finances that Will didn't want to move out was because he doubted they'd see much of one another if he did. Will couldn't imagine living away from her for so long. Sometimes it was nice to just get a voicemail from her to know she remembered him as much as he did her.

As Will listened, however, barely attending to his mom's words, he was distracted by the sound of a shout off to his side. Almost invisible at first, the sight of a young woman stumbling through the darkness rapidly approached the front entrance. She was panting, gasping and calling something that was more recognisably a plea for desperation of her tone than any discernible words.

Slung over her shoulder, a man clearly lacking in consciousness hung like a dead weight.

Will was starting towards her even as he registered the words, "Help – could someone please –" The woman was short, small, and Will admired that, despite the fact that the body she hauled alongside her with staggering steps wasn't much taller than she, she still managed to prop him upright. Will's phone was in his pocket and he was running towards them before he registered anything else. Need. Need overrode confusion and he acted accordingly.

"Shit, are you alright?" Will asked as he slowed at her side, immediately skirting the woman to loop an arm around the man she carried. He spared him only a cursory glance – head hanging and dark hair a mess, very clearly unconscious for his limpness, and darkness streaking what little skin of his pale hands was in evidence – before shifting his attention back to her.

She turned towards him with wide eyes, golden in the glow of the entrance and night lights, and Will thought for a moment they widened even further at the sight of him as though fearful of his approach. She froze for a brief second before she very decidedly shook her head and made to keep dragging her charge towards the hospital. "No. No, I'm fine, but Ni – but he isn't."

She gestured awkwardly towards the man at her side before appearing to thrust the need for conversation aside in favour of hastening towards the doors. Will accepted that. He accepted it as he thrust his questions and concerns aside, helping as much as he could and they made short work of the distance to the doors.

The woman was calling for help as soon as they stepped through the door and like clockwork that very help came rushing forth. In an instant, Will found himself surrounded by ready hands, the trundling sound of a gurney skidding across the linoleum halls before bumping across the carpeted entrance hall. Nurses scurried with practiced efficiency and within seconds Will was relieved of the sagging weight of the young man and left staggering slightly for the loss.

Through the midst of the racing bodies, he caught sight of him. He saw the consistent blackness of his garments, the tears that wrought his shirt through his open jacket, the blood that oozed out. But more than that, more than the sudden concern and distress he felt whenever he saw someone injured, a distress that he always forced himself to thrust aside for necessity, he saw _him._

It was – it was _him_. The same young man who had helped him against the gryphon.

Will didn't get a chance to notice more than that. In a second the man was being swept away in a flurry of activity, the bustle of figures surrounding him making short work of rushing him to emergency. Will was left standing and staring in a mixture of persisting worry and mounting surprise. He almost forgot about the woman at his side until she spoke.

"Oh Gods," she whispered. "Why do I never remember to bring ambrosia with me?"

Will didn't know what that meant, but he was turning towards her in an instant. In the light of the reception hall, he could make her out a little more clearly and in a detached and clinical manner made a quick scan of her.

She was short, barely came up to his shoulder, and slim. Dark-skinned with a tangle of tight, cinnamon curls, her golden eyes – very golden and seeming to glow with worry – stared in the direction that the young man had been taken. She chewed at her bottom lip as her fingers plucked at the hem of her pale shirt. It was a little mangled, stained with visible smears of blood. She shifted in place as though unable to stand still, one foot, the other, back again. Will knew that feeling of agitation only too well.

"Are you alright?" He asked for the second time, drawing her attention. He was abruptly as concerned for her own wellbeing as he was for the young man's; at least he'd been taken into professional hands. The woman could be injured for all he knew.

As she turned towards him, for a moment her eyes widened fractionally once more and Will was afforded an expression that looked distinctly wary. She even seemed to shrink away from him slightly, but before she was given the chance to reply a square-faced nurse that Will vaguely recognised approached them and asked the same question.

The young woman seemed relieved to have her attention forcibly diverted from Will. She shook her head. "I'm alright. It's not my blood."

The nurse – her nametag said Rochelle and Will was fairly certain he recognised her – nodded in acceptance, though Will could tell from the way her eyes flickered to the stained shirt that she was tempted to pursue her inquiry in case. "What's your name?"

"I'm," the woman paused and glanced towards Will with that same wariness. Will felt himself frown as she swallowed and turned back to Rochelle. "I'm Hazel."

"Hazel," Rochelle echoed with a nod. "Are you a friend of the patient's? Could you tell me what happened?"

Hazel nodded a little jerkily. Surprisingly, Will noticed that her unease seemed to be more for the questions and her situation than for the young man she'd just hauled over the threshold. Concern was apparent from the glances she kept sparing the hallway he'd disappeared down, but not quite hysterical distress. Will wasn't sure what to make of it; it was almost like she was an old hand at such situations which wasn't altogether reassuring. "I'm his sister."

"Sister?" Rochelle said with a slightly disbelieving arch of her eyebrow. Will couldn't help but agree with her; the two of them couldn't have looked less alike.

Hazel didn't appear to notice, however, gaze fixed upon the hallway once more. "Yes."

"Alright," Rochelle said, brushing aside her scepticism. She studied Hazel for a moment and seemed to consider her composure enough to follow directions, for with a beckon she was leading Hazel in what Will knew as being the general direction of the ER. "Would you be able to tell me what happened, Hazel?"

Hazel was glancing over her shoulder as they left the hallway behind them and seemed to struggle to shift her attention back to Rochelle as she was led with a gentle hand upon her shoulder. She shifted her gaze towards the nurse and once more Will could see that wariness resurface. It was flighty, as though she was prepared to run at the drop of a hat. Will followed in step, frown deepening.

"It was a – a dog," Hazel finally said as they turned a corner.

"A dog?" Rochelle's eyebrow arched once more.

Hazel nodded curtly, more confidently than her words had been. "Yes. It kind of went crazy. Like it was rabid."

"We don't have rabies in this part of America," Will said quietly, momentarily drawing their duel attention. Hazel flinched slightly but otherwise didn't respond.

Rochelle didn't pause in step as she regarded him with a questioning eye. "You helped out?"

Will nodded. "Yeah. And very little actual help, I'm afraid."

Rochelle nodded in turn. "You lent a hand. That's more than helpful. But if you didn't see anything and don't know anything about the situation, you're free to go."

Shaking his head in reply, Will picked up step until he fell in beside Hazel. "It was really a dog?" He asked. He certainly didn't feel any inclination to leave at that moment. Will would at least stick around to ensure the young man who'd saved him weeks ago was alright. He might even be able to talk to him.

Hazel peered at him sidelong, her eyes very large. She seemed an incredibly open person, which made the lie she spoke all the more apparent. Will was sure she was lying, though he could only guess as to why. An image of a gryphon rose in his mind and he felt uneasiness rise within him. Unease and something else. Excitement? Readiness? That couldn't be right.

Hazel didn't continue until they drew into the ER waiting room. "Yes, it was definitely a dog. What else could it be?"

Will shrugged. "A racoon, I guess. Or a person."

"It wasn't a person," Hazel said sharply, then bit her lip as though to silence herself.

Rochelle watched their exchange, then glanced between the both of them questioningly as Hazel maintained her silence. After a moment she shook her head. "Well, no matter. We'll likely see when we've taken a look at him."

"Will he be alright?" Hazel asked, concern abruptly flooding her tone double time.

Rochelle offered a smile that was warm but Will recognised as being equally simply professional. It was like a well-worn mask. "Our doctors are very good," was all she said before gesturing to a pair of chairs in a long row of half-filled identical seats and crossing to the wide desk on the other side of the room. As she murmured quietly to the nurse seated behind, Will took his own seat alongside Hazel as she sat rigidly in the already uncomfortable and unyielding plastic seating.

Rochelle returned a moment later, handing a clipboard and pen to Hazel. "Just fill out as much as you can, if you would. You can return the forms back to the desk when you're done. We'll let you know of any progress just as soon as we're aware." Then, with another professionally warm smile, she turned and left the waiting room.

Hazel stared after Rochelle, fiddling with the pen and gnawing her lip. Will noticed her leg begin to jiggle as if with too much nervous energy. He could understand that. He wondered if maybe she was like him in his attention deficiency – although maybe she was just worried. Most likely she was worried. She had a right to be.

"Did you need help filling out the form?" Will asked quietly. "I know sometimes it might be a bit confronting and difficult when you're not feeling too great. I can read the questions out to you if you'd like and you can just tell me what to write?"

Hazel snapped her attention back to Will, her eyes wide and wary once more, before she shifted in her seat and shook her head. "No. No, I'm fine, thank you. I'm… I'm just worried about him, I guess." Then she gripped her pen, bent over the clipboard so that she practically covered it with her body, and scratched away.

Will bit his tongue on talking further, allowing Hazel her privacy and instead turned towards the rest of the room. It was a slow night as far as he could tell, but that didn't mean all that much. The seats in the ER were still half-filled with a variable crowd of huddled figures, quietly moaning ailing and nervously twitching waiters. Across from Will, sprawled awkwardly in the uncomfortable chairs, a boy of about eight leant against a woman sandwiched on the other side by a girl who looked around two years the boy's junior. Both children were sleeping and the woman looked haggard.

Will systematically shifted his attention to each person in the room as Hazel filled out her form. It was easier like that; he didn't have a great attention span when distractions surrounded him, often played music when he studied to drown them out, and the thoughts that danced across his mind were certainly distracting. Mostly, he would acknowledge, about the young man, the man who had saved him from the gryphon – and that would never not sound strange, even to himself. Gryphons? Really? It sounded utterly stupid, and would have been had Will not seen it himself.

Will had unconsciously kept an eye out for the man in the past weeks, even knowing that there was a slim chance if any that he'd see him again. New York was a big city and though there was the slight niggle at the back of his mind he couldn't recall seeing him before. Or at least he didn't think he could. He would remember if he did, because Will knew he had a good memory.

That didn't mean Will didn't think about him. It didn't mean he didn't fixate upon who he was, where he'd come from, how he'd appeared just when Will was about to be gutted by a creature sprung right from mythology and wielded a sword as though he were an expert fighter from the ancient Roman legions. More than that, it didn't explain how no one else at the scene had seemed to think it as strange as Will did. Surprising, yes, and a little shocking that "a hawk, an aggressive hawk" had attacked someone in the middle of New York City. That sort of thing just didn't happen.

But no one seemed to question it too much after it had been dealt with. No one even seemed to think the gryphon was anything but a hawk to the point that Will had even briefly questioned his own recollection of the events. No one had said a word on the bus trip home that he could tell – though admittedly Will had been a little distracted – about the young man who wielded a sword, an actual sword, and killed said aggressive 'hawk'. It was confusing and Will didn't know what to make of it. Looking up images and search results for gryphons didn't help any either. It made it worse that when Will had asked around about the incident in the days following, nonchalance or disregard seemed to be the pervading thoughts on the matter.

But now that very man had appeared out of nowhere, belly torn open by some dog or racoon or whatever it had been, and Will didn't know what to make of it. It was so sudden, so unexpected to happen across him when he'd considered it next to impossible, that Will almost couldn't think of what to do about it. He would wait, he decided in the moments he sat silently studying the other members of the waiting room. He would wait and then, if he could, he would talk to him. Ask him questions. Ask him his name, at least, if only to express his gratitude for helping him. Will would be lying if he claimed the man didn't intrigue him just a little, and not only for his performance on the street side that apparently no one else realised or appreciated. It was that damn niggle, the recurring image of his frowning glance towards Will that kept resurfacing in his mind.

Will would ask. He would talk to him. He wouldn't invade the man's privacy or push him – he was injured, after all – but he would try. Maybe he'd even manage to get his number in the process.

At his side, Hazel shifted, tapped the pen idly upon the clipboard, and abruptly stood up. Will watched as she strode in long steps across the room, absently assessing her step for any signs of visible injuries or discomfort, and handed the forms to the MA over the desk. As she did so, Will found himself frowning. Again. There was something… something…

Hazel returned to his side, slowing and eyeing Will almost uneasily for a moment before seating herself gingerly once more. She sat on her hands as though to keep them still but the immediate jiggling of her leg again made the attempt redundant.

Will watched her for a moment before speaking. "Are you sure you're alright? If you're injured or anything, I can call for a nurse. Or a Band-Aid, depending upon the severity. Whatever you need."

Hazel spared him a glance, long and unblinking, before offering a feeble, wavering smile. "I'm alright. Really. Thanks anyway."

Silence, and then Hazel dropped her gaze down to her knees. Her shoulders hunched slightly but she didn't seem on the point of breaking down. Just… worried. Will frowned thoughtfully at that stoicism. That too was vaguely familiar. He could almost swear…

"Do I know you from somewhere?"

Hazel didn't quite flinch, but the speed she snapped her chin up towards him was as good as. Her eyes blew wide once more. Yes, definitely guileless. She wouldn't make a good liar at all. "What?"

Will strove to keep his voice calm, soft and even soothing. "Sorry, I just feel like I've seen you before. Have we met somewhere?"

If possible, Hazel's eyes grew larger. Had Will needed confirmation of his suspicions, that would have been more than adequate. For a moment he was actually distracted from thinking about the young man currently being tended to by doctors, distracted from the niggling pondering and the jabbing worry. Did he know Hazel? He didn't think he knew _a_ Hazel, but –

"No." Hazel shook her head sharply before dropping her gaze back down to her knees. "No, we haven't."

"Really?"

"We haven't," Hazel repeated. Her leg jiggled ferociously, shaking even Will's chair. "You don't know me." She paused, took a deep breath and gave an audible swallow before falling back to chewing relentlessly on her lip. "I think I just have one of those faces, you know? Sort of looks like anyone and everyone."

Will didn't think so. He didn't think she had a plain or common face. Her features were prominent but patrician, straight nose, wide eyes, round face and open expression that only enhanced her apparent honestly, despite the lies she was clearly attempting to enforce. Will was sure he would remember her if he'd seen her before, her specifically. Where was that familiarity coming from?

When he thought about it, it was almost the same as for the man. Will found himself frowning once more.

He wanted to ask Hazel questions. He wanted to poke and tentatively pry, to attempt to understand what was going on. He wanted to ask if Hazel was really the man's brother, for they truly looked nothing alike – maybe step-siblings? – and more than that what his name was. As soon as the thought occurred to him, Will desperately wanted to know. He didn't even know the man's _name_.

But Will didn't speak. He didn't prod and he didn't pry. It was a struggle, for when not being interrupted incessantly by Cindy, Will found himself quite inclined to conversation, but he held his tongue. He waited. And he hoped that whatever had happened, however badly the man was injured, he would be alright.

If not Hazel, then Will could at least as him some questions.

* * *

They waited for hours. Hours of silence, watching those seated in the waiting room alongside them rise when called for and disappear through the briefly opened double doors into the hallway beyond. Will studied each new face that entered to replace those absented if only because it was something to do and he resolutely refused to look at either the clock over his head or his phone. He knew from experience that logging the time in such a way only made it seem to take longer.

Hazel sat with similar silence at his side. She got up only once to take herself to the water cooler, standing frozen and silent for three whole minutes without drinking from the cup in her hand. She only took a sip before pouring the rest into the pot plant alongside it and taking herself back to her seat. She watched her knee as it jiggled. Stared across the room at a baby as it started bawling. Drew her gaze towards the tiny television above the receptionist's desk, though Will could tell from the glassiness of her eyes that she didn't really see what was playing. Will understood that. He didn't see it either.

And they waited. They waited and held their tongues, both nearly starting to standing from their seats each time the doors swung inwards and admitted a nurse. They inevitably called someone else's name, however, and Will slumped back into his seat each time.

He didn't know why he was so concerned. As a med student and one who had been all but living in hospitals his entire life – or at least as far back as he could remember – he'd forced himself to become as desensitised to the injuries and illnesses of those admitted, a process that was always a challenge whenever faced with someone in need. It was a necessity, and though Will still felt it, still regretted the ailments of those he helped care for, it was never a good idea to feel too deeply. Patients went one of two ways: they recovered and left, forgetting their doctors and nurses almost as soon as they passed through the door, or they didn't. Ever. It was less painful and exhausting not to feel.

But for some reason, Will was worried. Genuinely worried, and not just as a passing thought. Maybe it was just that he felt some investment in the young man whose name he didn't know. Maybe he felt like, as he'd been helped, he should offer some help in return. Or maybe it was purely for selfish reasons, to sate his curiosity. Will had tried not to let himself think about it too deeply given that it was largely a set of unbelievable circumstances that surrounded their situation, but he'd thought about that gryphon. He'd thought about it a lot. Almost as much as he did the man with the sword.

Will was turning circles in his mind, found his own leg jostling in response to Hazel's persistent fidgeting, until finally he couldn't help but break their silence. Turning towards her, Will sat forwards in his seat slightly, propping his elbows on his knees. "Did you want to call someone?" He asked. "Any family – other family – or something? Let them know what's going on?"

Hazel peered at him sidelong with that unerring wariness. How she managed to remain on such high alert for hours on end Will didn't know. It was admirable to say the least. Slowly, she shook her head. "I don't have a phone."

"You can use mine," Will offered, already reaching in his pocket to draw it out and overlooking the strangeness of Hazel not having her own. What twenty-something year old didn't carry a phone? "Or you can use the one at the receptionist's desk."

Hazel dropped her gaze to the phone Will held out, a dubious expression upon her face, before lifting it to regard him once more. "Why are you being so nice to me?" She asked, and it wasn't accusing but sincerely surprised.

"What?"

"You don't have to be. You don't – you _don't_ know me, or – or my brother." She tripped slightly over her words, and Will wondered if it was just his perception that she sounded as though she was trying to convince herself of her own words. Maybe it was just she trying to convince him? It only had Will all the more suspicious for it. "You don't have to sit here and wait with me."

Will shrugged. He wanted to question Hazel about the vague – very vague – feeling of familiarity, but he wouldn't push it. It wouldn't be right anyway. Not now. Not in their current circumstances. "I've got nothing else to be doing."

"You've got nothing better to do than sit in a hospital emergency room at nine o'clock on a Saturday night?" Once more, there was no accusation but simple curiosity in Hazel's question.

Shaking his head, Will smiled a little ruefully. "I guess not."

Hazel offered a small smile in return, a smile that said something that Will couldn't quite read. Maybe knowing? "You're a really nice person, Will."

Shrugging once more, Will raked a finger tiredly through his hair. "I'm not entirely altruistic, actually. I sort of know your brother."

Just like that, Hazel's smile slipped to be replaced by wariness once more. Will instantly regretted his words, even if he knew he wouldn't retract them if he could. "Is that so?"

Feigning ignorance of her discomfort, Will nodded casually. "Yeah. He actually saved me a few weeks ago. A crazy bird attacked me."

"Really…"

"Came out of nowhere and practically beat it into the ground to get it to leave me alone." Not entirely true but not inaccurate either. The image of the man swinging his sword and smashing the gryphon to dusk rose in the forefront of Will's mind. "He was pretty incredible actually."

"He is that," Hazel said simply, and despite her wariness there was sincerity to her words.

"Does he, I don't know, train birds or something?" Will asked. He wondered how long he could keep the analogy going for. Would Hazel slip up? Did she even really know what had happened? Had her brother told her?

Hazel shrugged tightly, her leg jiggling even faster. "Something like that."

"Go figure. What are the odds?"

"Very slim, actually," Hazel muttered, and as seemed common from their few exchanges, Will sensed a deeper meaning within her words.

Staring at her, Will couldn't help but ask. "If you don't mind, what's your brother's name? I never got to ask him before."

Instantly, as though a bullet had been fired in the middle of the room, Hazel stiffened to ramrod straight and froze in rigidity. Even her leg stilled its fidgeting. Staring at Will sidelong, she looked nothing if not a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. Her teeth were pressed so hard into her bottom lip that it turned white. Will was almost surprised it didn't start bleeding.

She didn't speak, though. Hazel didn't say a word or defrost, and Will was only left to wonder in rapidly rising suspicion – even greater suspicion than before and the feeling that something was definitely very strange and possibly _wrong –_ and the wonder of what the hell was going on. Hazel was acting very curiously, and he might have been able to put it down to the situation and concern for her brother, except that Will had never seen anyone act in such an unusual way before that night. It was _very_ strange.

But maybe Will could use it. He didn't want to think himself mercenary or cruel, but Hazel was very definitely unnerved and unnerved people could – _could_ – at times demonstrate a propensity for spilling the beans. Sometimes. Hopefully. Will sat up in his seat, opened his mouth to ask, but –

The doors opened and a nurse that Will didn't recognise with a five o'clock shadow decorating his jaw stepped through, scanning the room. "Hazel?"

Hazel was on her feet in an instant and hastening towards the nurse. Will barely got the chance to spring to his own and follow in her wake before, with a smile, the nurse was directing her from the room.

They passed down the hall, the nurse's shoes clicking on the linoleum as he led the way. Hazel walked in quick steps at his side and they'd barely passed out the door before she was pestering the nurse with questions. "Is he alright? Did he get fixed up? Is he awake yet? I'm allowed to see him, right?"

The nurse turned a sympathetic yet slightly amused smile towards her. "He'll be alright. Not fixed, I shouldn't think – injuries like those your brother has don't mend quite so instantaneously, I'm afraid – but he'll be alright. They were some serious wounds there."

"It was a big dog," Hazel said by way of explanation. Her words were clipped but not sharp. Almost pained, Will thought. He found himself studying the back of her head as he followed her with his frown returned.

The nurse nodded as though Hazel's explanation was more than acceptable. "Yeah, looks like it. He's not awake at the moment. Or not yet, at least, though he probably won't be out for long. You're allowed to see him. It would probably help him, actually, to have people around he knew when he wakes up."

Hazel nodded, falling silent as though she'd received all the answers she needed. Her back was straight again, shoulders tense, and she looked just as worried as she'd been before. Will couldn't blame her for that. He suspected she'd be just as concerned until she saw her brother. Will found himself similarly eager.

They passed into the wards, striding past rooms with half-closed doors and sectioned-off beds with drawn curtains. Will had almost forgotten how late it was, what with the number of patients constantly in the ER, but the sparseness of nurses and absence of wandering patients was indicative enough. There was an air of quietness that pervaded the halls, muting voices to a murmur and making the beeps of machines and hum of the overhead lights all the louder.

Their trip up through the elevator that for some reason seemed to make Hazel even more uncomfortable, their nurse led them down another equally quiet hallway to a room with plaque number three-twelve adorning the wall to the left. It was quiet within, darkened and illuminated only by the fluorescent lights in the hall. Will followed as the nurse led Hazel within; the natural inclination to silence to quietness, to almost tiptoe, impressed itself upon him as it always did.

It was only a two-bed room, and the second, bed three-thirteen, was hidden by pale curtains drawn around a bed silent but for the thrum of machinery. The nurse slipped behind those sidelong, tugging the curtains open slightly to allow them easier access to the patient within.

And there he was.

The lack of light in the room didn't do much to hide him. He lay immobile, utterly still and shrouded in a sheet pulled up across his chest that was bared of his shirt and replaced with bandages that Will could see wrapped at least his shoulder. His face, the single arm hanging out of the sheets and hooked up to an IV, was pale, possibly even more than he had been when Will had seen him weeks before though that would only be expected, and his shaggy, overlong hair a bit of a mess. But he slept peacefully enough. Resting.

Resting was good. Will knew that sleep could often offer better cure than persistent and overloading bouts of medicine for recovering patients. It was only a shame that he couldn't speak to the man for of it. In that moment, as Will stared at him, the flicker of familiarity that was even stronger than that he felt so, _so_ slightly for Hazel, arose once more. Did Will know him? Did he? From _where_?

Hazel's gushing exhalation drew his distracted attention towards her. She was staring at her brother but as he watched she closed her eyes briefly before taking herself to the side of his bed and perching upon the edge of the mattress. "He's really alright?" She asked without glancing away from her brother.

The nurse nodded. "His injuries were pretty deep, so he'll have to take it easy for a while, but he'll be alright. Will you be his primary support?"

Hazel nodded jerkily. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm – or at least me and a few other people. We stay with – with friends. And family."

The nurse nodded again. "So long as he's got a good support network, I'm sure he'll be fine. We'll have to get you to fill out some forms for us before you check out if that's alright. Work out your insurance and all."

Hazel spared the nurse a glance, a wary glance that immediately drew Will's consideration because he'd learned in the short time he'd known her that Hazel's wariness meant she was hiding something. He didn't speak however, and only nodded his like-mindedness to Hazel as she murmured her gratitude and the nurse left with a word about taking himself to the nurse's station. Then he left.

Turning his attention back to Hazel and her brother, Will watched carefully. She was squeezing his hand in a way that was entirely platonic, familial as Will would have recognised even had she not claimed their relationship. Her face was still tight, and if Will didn't know better he would have thought she was attempting to communicate with touch and expression alone.

Hazel didn't speak. She didn't speak for a long time, and Will found himself shifting in place, glancing between the siblings curiously with the growing urge to break the silence himself. Not that he did. He knew enough about bedside manner to realise when silence was requested.

Will was staring at Hazel's brother, studying his face with growing certainty that he really did know him from somewhere, and considering finding a seat to wait out Hazel's silence when she finally shook herself from her stupor. She shifted and spoke with almost sharp abruptness. "Will," she said, almost overly loudly. "I've got to tell you something." An instant was on her feet.

Will blinked at her in surprise for a moment, struck by the realisation that hadn't occurred to him before as she said his name. Had he introduced himself? Or was it just – did Rochelle introduce him? He couldn't remember. He was even more surprised when Hazel reached for his arm and, turning from her brother, all but dragged him from the room. Will spared a glance over his shoulder for the bedridden patient before allowing himself to be drawn.

Hazel took several steps from the door in the direction of the nurse's station. For a moment Will wondered if she was leading him towards it for whatever reason, but she stopped after a few paces and turned towards him. Regarding him briefly, mutely, she seemed to school her features before speaking. "Thank you."

Will blinked his surprise once more. "Sorry?"

"I just wanted to thank you. For helping me before when I was coming into the hospital and everything." She cleared her throat slightly and despite her visage of calm collectedness, the tension in her shoulders suggested she was anything but. "And for sitting with me when you didn't have to."

Smiling slightly, Will shrugged. "That's okay. As I said, there wasn't anything I had to be doing." Half turning back towards her brother's room, Will made a half step towards it. "You know, you didn't have to leave to tell me –"

In startling forwardness, Hazel reached for Will's arm and practically grabbed at him to still him in place. Starting in surprise, Will bit back a flinch. What the…? But Hazel was wincing herself as though she realised the strangeness of her actions and quickly released Will's arm. "Sorry, I – sorry. I mean, I was just going to tell you."

Will stared at her expectantly for a moment. She was certainly a strange person. Not bad, he didn't think, but jumpy and incredibly nervous. It made him wonder; between what he suspected to be the falsehood of how her brother had acquired his injuries and the wariness and avoidance of discussion that had followed, he couldn't help but think something was afoot. He didn't want there to be, and something within him told him that Hazel, for whatever reason, wasn't the sort of person to be caught up with the wrong crowd, but he had to wonder.

At Hazel's extended pause, Will prompted, "What?"

Hazel swallowed, sparing a glance towards her brother's room. "I…" Another pause, and then, "Nico. His name's Nico."

There was no sudden rush of overwhelming familiarity, of recollection or exasperation as the name abruptly brought forth a torrent of memories. There was none of that at all, though Will was curious when he felt that almost annoying niggling once more. Not quite a memory but a feeling. Nico… Did he know a Nico? He felt like maybe he should. Like he _should_ know, and abruptly wanted to return back to this Nico's side. "Oh. Right. Thanks for telling me. I've wondered for weeks."

Hazel was watching him attentively, and the wide-eyed staring she affixed Will with was almost as disconcerting and suspicious as her wariness. Slowly, she nodded. "No problem."

Another pause and then Will gestured back to the room. "Did you want to head back in? The nurse did say that he might be waking up soon." He hoped his touch of eagerness wasn't too noticeable in his tone. Nico…

Hazel nodded slowly once more. "Yeah, sure."

Turning, slowly turning for he couldn't shake the feeling that something had happened that was of a deeper meaning than he fully comprehended, Will started back towards the room. Slipping through the doorway, he passed through the curtain of the second bed –

And stopped. He stopped and stared. At the hanging IV tube. At the scuffle of sheets, the emptiness of bed. At the distinct absence of the patient who had been there moments before.

Will hastened to the bedside, stupidly but instinctively tugging aside the sheets and even peering over the side of the bed. But Nico… Nico was gone. "What the…?"

Frowning, heart abruptly racing in a mixture of confusion and sparked concern, he glanced over his shoulder. "Hazel, are you -?"

He fell silent once more and stared. The room behind him, the space within the little capsule of the curtained bed and beyond, palely illuminated by the hallway's glow, was empty. Will paused for barely a second, surprise and confusion only mounting further, before he started out into the hallway. He peered beyond, left, right.

Hazel… Hazel was gone.

A glance over his shoulder once more and…

Gone. They were both gone.

Will could only stare. He didn't know what, didn't know why and couldn't make out the meaning behind the feeling of dissatisfaction and almost – worry? – that rose within him, but that much was apparent. Hazel and her brother, Hazel and Nico, had been there only briefly before disappearing like a puff of shadow.

Will found that, quite without knowing why, he sorely missed them. He didn't even know them but he wanted them back.

* * *

Nico huddled upon himself, arms wrapped around his midsection. Fucking hospitals. He'd never liked hospitals, but now, with the absence of a shirt in the autumnal night air, he disliked them even more. How impractical, to ensure that their patients were only half dressed. It made escaping all the more difficult.

Which, Nico realised, probably wasn't really much of a consideration for people attempting to save their patients' lives.

Shivering, Nico paced back and forth barely out of range of the glowing front entrance. His heart was still racing, his breath wavering slightly in a mixture of fear and adrenaline. It had been close. It had been so close. He'd woken groggily, and it was only the slight squeeze, the warning pressure of Hazel's hand upon his own, that had urged him to remain still as he did so. Then he'd heard her words.

"Will. I've got to tell you something."

Will. Will had been in the room. Hazel had very deliberately – and likely very obviously, for she had never been one adept at deception – clued him in to Will's presence and then just as deliberately led him from the room. Nico had barely waited for the soft scuffle of their footsteps to depart before he was sitting up and throwing his sheets aside, tugging the IV from his arm with barely a thought to flinch.

Nico's stomach hurt. His chest, his shoulder, something distinctly stinging on his back. The manticore had sprung upon him out of nowhere, taking him in his distraction with his conversation with Hazel, and they'd only just managed to vanquish it before he collapsed. A vicious one, that one. Big. Huge, even. Nico was lucky Hazel had been with him to pick him up after it. Even if she couldn't shadow travel them both back to camp, he would have been a mess without her.

Nico barely acknowledged his wounds, however. He felt them briefly, noted that they weren't debilitating enough to stop him from moving, and fled. The physical hurts were less important than the necessity of the situation to _leave right now_.

Twice in a matter of weeks. Twice Nico had bumped into Will. Was he getting sloppy? After two whole years of avoiding notice, were his attentiveness and avoidance abilities growing lax? Or maybe it was just that the monsters were acting up. They tended to hone in on places demigods made their niche. Will had been in the one place for too long.

Not that he knew that. Not that Will knew the dangers of staying put. It was Nico's job to ensure he didn't have to know.

In the hospital room, barely awake, Nico was terrified. Already twitching with agitation, nearly gasping for a combination of his wounds and the fear of Will coming back into the room and pinning him in place before he could escape, he lurched from the bed. Would Will ask question? Would he peel and delve too deeply? He didn't recognise Nico, he knew from their last encounter – and resolutely refused to feel anything but relieved for that reality – but that didn't mean he wouldn't wonder. Will wasn't stupid. He would have recognised Nico. He might have even put two and two together that it was more than coincidence that he'd come across Nico in such a short span of time.

Nico had to get out. And, without a thought for how it would look for the hospital – the Mist might even cover that – he shadow travelled out of the ward.

Pacing back in the other direction and suppressing back another shiver, Nico spared one of many glances for the entrance of the hospital. He sighed in relief as he saw Hazel pass through the doors, straight-backed and visibly nervous. Her shoulders slumped in relief as she saw him and she practically ran to his side.

"I'm sorry," she said before she'd even slowed.

"What?"

"I'm sorry. For bumping into Will." Hazel shook her head. She looked shaken, and the slightly trembling hand she passed over her face only added to the impression. "It all just happened so fast and I didn't know what to do with it all. I didn't know how to get him to go away."

"It's alright," Nico said, even as he felt a sick roil in his gut for Hazel's words. His arms curled more tightly around his waist. "It couldn't be helped."

Hazel shook her head once more. "I'm really terrible with this."

"I know. You've never been good at lying."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. Honesty's a good thing."

"Not when you're trying to keep a secret."

Nico allowed that. Another shiver rippled down his spine, though from the cold more than unease this time. "What did you tell him?"

Hazel cringed. "I'm sorry."

"Hazel –"

"I told him your name." She swallowed. "I'm really sorry, Nico. I just – I just needed to stall him for a second and didn't know what else to say."

Nico froze. It wasn't so much in surprise for what Hazel had done – really, she wouldn't have even been able to convincingly give a pseudo-name – but for what it meant. Will knew his name? Nico had to forcibly shove aside the mixture of horror, terror and something else he very resolutely refused to acknowledge that rose within him.

"Did he -?" Nico struggled to speak through his sudden hoarseness. "Do you think he…?"

Hazel bit her lip before hesitantly shaking her head. "I don't think he recognised it."

That something rose within Nico once more and he thrust it aside. Nodding shortly, he stepped to Hazel's side, lipping his hand into hers. "That's good, then."

"Nico –"

"It's fine, Hazel. And we should go. If it's all the same, I wouldn't mind stealing some ambrosia before we turn in for the night."

Hazel looked on the verge of protesting – not the ambrosia, Nico knew – but silenced herself with further chewing of her lip. She nodded and squeezed his hand. "Alright. I stopped by the bathroom to send an Iris message off to Annabeth. She'll be here to take over from us any second."

Nico released a heavy, relieved sigh he hadn't realised he held. "Thank."

"No problem. Are you sure you're okay to shadow travel?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Nico assured her. Then, without a backwards glance and definitely without another thought of Will, Nico wrapped them both in shadows.


	3. Chapter 3 - Closed Lips

**Chapter 3: Closed Lips**

One week.

One whole week of thinking, and Will was drawing blank after blank. He was so distracted that even the ever-vague Yvette, his loyal study companion in Clin Med class, had noticed. She'd leant him her lecture notes when he'd tuned out halfway through his Wednesday class. Will was worried he would start making a habit of his distractedness but couldn't seem to shake the direction his thoughts were taking to. The thoughts he always seemed to be plagued with these days even when it really, really shouldn't concern him.

One, where had the Nico-and-Hazel siblings gone? Nico had been injured, Will knew, mauled by the 'crazy dog' as Hazel had vaguely described, and he shouldn't have been walking around. But it wasn't just that he had checked himself out of the hospital. Nico had quite literally disappeared as if into thin air, and before Will could do more than realise that fact Hazel had disappeared too.

It was disconcerting. Disconcerting and mind-boggling that they would have left – fled, even – before Nico was well enough. He must have only just woken up. Being the up-and-coming medical student that he was, Will was horrified at the prospect of anyone slipping the care the hospital and its nurses could provide for… for what?

But more than that, more than simply the confusion that they'd left and just _how_ it had happened, was that his second plaguing thought, number two: no one seemed to care. Or more correctly, no one else in the hospital seemed to find it strange – the how or the why. In fact, when Will had hastened to the nurse's station already calling for attention and assistance for an abruptly missing patient, the nurses it simply smiled and assured Will that it was alright.

"Oh, yes, he checked out."

Will paused in step, even skidded a little as he was brought up short. Stunned, he stared between the pair stationed alongside one another at the dimly lit desk. "What? No, I'm talking about Nico. Nico – I don't know his last name, but the man with injuries to his torso in bed three twe–"

"Yes, yes, Nico," the nurse that had escorted Will and Hazel to the ward nodded with an obliging smile. "Yes, his sister checked him out."

Will stared at him. Was he teasing him? Taking him for a fool? Will had quite literally just been at Nico's bedside, had stepped out of the room for barely a minute, and returned to find him disappeared. _Disappeared_. He wouldn't even have been able to climb out the window if it hadn't been locked; it was quite a drop to the roadside below.

"But…" Will trailed off, frowning at the nurse and the woman who sat at his side and smiled up at him. She had a nametag that said 'Linda' and eyes that crinkled behind her thickly-rimmed glasses. "But I was just in his room. I just saw him. And Hazel. She was just here. They couldn't have –"

Linda shook her head before adjusting her glasses with a push to the bridge of her nose. "No, dear, they left earlier this evening."

"He literally only just checked in this afternoon."

"Yes, well, apparently the doctors deemed him able enough to sign out," she said with a slightly exasperated sigh.

"But…" Will trailed off once more, glancing between the nurses' expectant and faintly amused expressions. They clearly thought him a little daft or very confused. Was he? Surely he couldn't have – no, he'd just been talking to –

What?

Will left them at that. Questioning his own sanity as he turned to leave the ward, he paused to poke his head into the room Nico had been in but minutes before to stare at the empty, rumpled bed. He had definitely, _definitely_ just been there. Definitely. What the hell was going on?

Will had no idea. A week later and he still had no idea, and he'd been thinking it over quite thoroughly. He'd even managed to get his hands on Nico's files – disturbingly only 'Nico', not even a surname – but there had been little enough information on them. He'd had wounds, deep cutaneous lacerations to his stomach, right shoulder, across his back, and been dosed up on opiods to knock him out for a few hours. Then, right there in slanted black writing that was barely legible, the time he'd checked out. It was almost the exact moment that Will had seen him disappear. Or not seen him, as would be the case.

Will thought he might be going insane. Or at least he might have, except that he'd always had a good memory. He might be dyslexic and struggle with some of the readings the doctors assigned to him, but that difficulty only made him cling to what he did absorb all the more for the hopes of avoiding having to reread them. His friends knew he had a good memory, even abused it good-naturedly at times. _Will_ knew it. Surely he couldn't have been so utterly wrong.

Could he?

Will wouldn't have questioned it for the fact that he could remember both Nico and Hazel starkly well, despite the words of the nurses and what was clearly depicted on Nico's files, except for one thing. One final thing that Will couldn't stop thinking about, and that was that he felt, he _felt_ , like he should know Nico, should know Hazel too, and yet… when Will struggled to reach for memories of them that felt like they should be there, he drew blanks.

 _Nico… Nico especially_. Will was practically tearing his hair out by the end of the week for his confusion and frustration. _I feel like I should know him. Why don't I know him? Nico is…_

Will didn't know. He couldn't remember. And that, perhaps even more than the impossibility of contradicting facts in the hospital, was the most confounding part of it.

When Friday finally came around – finally, for the week had seemed especially long for the time Will had been lost in his own infuriating thoughts – he let himself into the flat he and his mother shared and practically fell onto the sofa before he'd even stepped through the door. Burying his face in the lacy throw pillow, Will grumbled to himself, scrubbing at his head in more of a massage than a frustrated tugging of his hair. Was that a headache he felt coming on?

"Will? Is that you?"

At the sound of his mom's voice, Will lifted his face from the pillow. Heaving himself onto his elbows, he peered over the back of the sofa in the general direction of the pillow. "Mom?"

"Hi, sweetheart!"

In a bustle that seemed far to excessive for the tall, waifish woman Naomi Solace was, Will's mom appeared in the doorway leading from kitchen to living room. She beamed, wide smile erasing the spider-thin wrinkles about her face.

Levering himself fully into sitting, Will rubbed his head once more and blinked in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Naomi's smile widened. "Surprised?"

"Aren't you supposed to be at work?"

Shrugging, Naomi half turned back towards the kitchen. "I clocked out early today."

Looping an arm over the back of the sofa, Will tipped his head to follow her movement as she bustled back into the kitchen. His mom was already dressed down for the afternoon, casual slacks and a stretched sweater accompanied by the lazy scuffle of her short, usually finely groomed hair. She made a mess of pulling cups from the cupboard, filling them with juice and throwing a plate of half-broken biscuits together. Naomi was always like that; it was strange that, given her usual professional air in the workplace, detachedly assessing her patients and in general keeping a formal distance from them, she was an incessant and rather sloppy mother hen.

Crossing the room towards him, Naomi plopped herself onto the sofa at his side. "I only just got in myself, actually."

"And naturally rolled into a pair of trackies," Will said with a smile, accepting the juice from his mom as she took a sip of her own. "You don't have to wait on me, you know."

"You've been at college all day."

"And you've been at work."

"Let me spoil you," Naomi chided him. "I'm hardly around enough in the afternoons to do it as it is."

Will bit back a reminder that he wasn't a child, that he didn't need to be spoiled, that if anything he thought it probably more appropriate that he spoil her on the occasions they happened to be in the flat at the same time. But he didn't. Naomi was simply like that; she liked helping people, in whatever way she could. And did.

Munching on a biscuit, Will asked her about her day to be filled in with a very minimalized explanation of Amie Tuckman and her wayward daughter who wouldn't stop complaining even though her mother was the one in the hospital bed, Ryan Sick of the Unfortunate Name who was actually less unwell than he'd previously assumed himself and old Ted Gleeson who'd come in for his weekly check up that afternoon and proved to be improving swimmingly. Will smiled fondly at his mom as she lit up at that last; she might keep it professional in the workplace, but as soon as she was home and in relative privacy, she seemed unable to express her overwhelming delight for her improving patients.

These were the very reasons Will was hesitant to even think about moving out. He would miss this too much.

"But how about you, sweetheart," Naomi said as, after a sigh, she seemed to deflate from her ecstatic babbling. She plucked a biscuit from the plate in her lap, looked at him expectantly. "How was your day?"

Will nodded around his own mouthful. "Good. Yeah, it was pretty good."

"That's not an answer," Naomi said in her chiding tone. "You're looking tired." She gestured at his face. "Are those bags I see?"

Will waved her prodding gesture aside with a smile. "Hey, don't."

"They are. Are you not sleeping well?"

Shrugging, Will took another sip of juice. "Maybe. I don't know. Just… thinking about something."

Turning to better face him with a slight juggle of the biscuit plate and juice, Naomi propped an elbow on the back of the sofa. "Tell me."

Will sighed, lowering his glass to rest in his lap. Where did he start? He'd tried to talk to some of his friends about what had happened; Cindy had been confused, Yvette speculative but largely disregarding and Nathan clearly though he was pulling his leg. Will wasn't sure how Naomi would take his seemingly wild speculations and confusion. Should he ask her to ask around at the hospital? She'd been at Mount Sinai for a long time. She could probably throw her weight around and manage to wreak change with it.

But Will didn't know what change he was hoping for. He didn't know what to do at all, what to think, or what he should do to pursue the situation that had so confounded him yet he couldn't for the life of him leave alone. He didn't _want_ to leave it alone. That niggle was damned persistent. Will didn't know… until he had a thought.

Turning to face his mom in a mirroring pose, he slung his arm back over the back of the sofa. "Okay, you might be able to help me with something. I'm trying to remember someone I think I might have forgotten."

"You? Forgotten?" Naomi arched an eyebrow over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. "That's not like you."

"Yeah, that's what I thought too," Will sighed, annoyance rising briefly within him. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "But then I bumped into someone the other day and I could swear I knew them from somewhere but… do you remember someone called Nico at all?"

Naomi dropped her glass.

Juice spilled everywhere and in an instant Will was on his feet, yelping and darting to the kitchen for paper towels. His mom's "Oh, dammit!" sounded behind him and when he returned to her side with towels in hand she was shaking her fingers in little flicks and peering down at the mess she'd spilled over herself.

Will hastened to mop up the juice, kneeling to dab at it hurriedly before it could leak further into the couch before glancing briefly up at his mom. "Are you alright?"

Naomi spared him a glance – a wide-eyed, almost worried glance – before shaking her head and turning a frown down upon herself. "Yes, of course, I'm fine. Just the juice. Dammit, that'll stain the couch. It's a shame it's such a light colour."

Will paused in his mopping to stare at her. What was that all about? The only thing Will could think of was, "Mom? Do you know him or something?"

Naomi froze in wiping her hands on her slacks. Will was watching her so he was almost certain he saw the moment she schooled her expression before lifting her chin and meeting his gaze. Her face was almost too blank. "Nico? No, I don't think so. Not that I can recall."

That didn't make sense. If Will got his good memory from anyone it was his mom. 'Not that she could recall' was vague at best, and entirely unlikely for that vagueness. Because of that and what could only be described as a startle response… Will slowly rose to his feet. Something was definitely not right. "Mom? Are you – what aren't you telling me?"

For a long moment Naomi only stared at him. Then, as though giving herself a mental slap, she shook her head and adopted a smile. Will didn't think it was his imagination that it was a little strained. "Nothing, sweetheart. I'm sorry, I don't think I do know him." Then, with an exasperated sigh that seemed just a little excessive, she shook her head once more. "Look at the mess I've made of myself. Hold on a second, I'll just go and change."

Will watched her leave with a frown rapidly impressing itself on his brow. His mom was an honest person and took no delight in deceiving others. She never seemed inclined to either. Will couldn't imagine why she would lie about the situation, for that was very definitely what she'd done. It only made him all the more curious, because _who the hell was Nico?_

He tried to ask Naomi about it upon her return as they cleaned up the mess together, but she deflected him. And kept deflecting him for the rest of the night. Their easy exchange had stiffened slightly, but Will barely considered it. He was once more lost in thought for what he couldn't recall.

 _What the fuck have I forgotten?_

* * *

Naomi, Will rapidly came to understand, was a very good dodger. Professional-level, even, to the point that Will had to wonder how much she had manoeuvred around in the past to his ignorance.

Not for a second did Will believe that his mom knew nothing about Nico. Just Nico, perhaps, and maybe nothing more about the confounding situation Will had found himself a sidelong participant to, but that much he was sure of. It didn't matter that she shook her head, smiled overly brightly and informed him she didn't know any Nico. It didn't matter that she sighed her exasperation over her 'butter fingers' that had resulted in the spillage that had indeed left stains on their couch.

Naomi Solace didn't have butter fingers. She was one of the best surgeons in New York. Possible in the greater eastern US.

And yet regardless of how Will rationalised – both to himself and to his mom – she wouldn't cave.

"Mom, can we please talk about it? I just want to know –"

"I'm sorry, Will," she would sigh with what seemed to be genuine regret. "I don't know what I can tell you."

Or, "Mom, I was just wondering – no, not about Nico, I swear. Have you by any chance met someone called Hazel before?"

"Hazel? That's a pretty name. Are they someone from college?"

Or, "Mom, you haven't heard anything weird about disappearing patients at the hospital, have you?"

Naomi frowned, confused, and shook her head. "Disappearing patients? No, not that I know of. Have you heard something? Has something happened?"

Will shook his head in reply. "Just the once, actually. A patient – a trauma patient – just checked in and then out again that same night. He shouldn't have left and I don't even know how he managed to leave without anyone noticing, but no on seems to think it's strange."

Naomi didn't reply immediately to that statement. Her expression was blank but for a touch of confused curiosity, but Will had come to realise something about that expression. It wasn't confusion or simple curiosity. It wasn't even thinly veiled nonchalance. His mom was hiding something, and she was very carefully keeping whatever it was tucked behind her composed visage.

It was disconcerting. Will had always been honest with his mom, and he'd believed she to be the same with him. To learn that she was keeping, had been keeping, something from him, something that he hadn't even realised but felt _big_ somehow… it hurt. It hurt a lot.

What hurt just as much was the fact that Will truly did think it was big. Not only for Naomi's response, her silence on the matter, but because he _felt_ it. When he'd first seen Nico, before he'd even known his name, there had been a niggle. A niggle was all it was, and that just barely, for Will had been somewhat distracted by the appearance of a gryphon, the likes of which _shouldn't exist_. He still didn't know what to make of the mythical creature; searches online found a plethora of speculations about them once existing, groups that believed they still did exist, and others that were convinced the mythical walked amongst them as some sort of ghostly totem creatures. Will didn't think any of them had experienced similarly to him. Even when he'd taken to leaving questions on some of the forums, his only replies had been overexcitement or thoughtful speculation the likes of which convinced him that those he conversed with truly didn't know anything at all.

That niggle, that touch of curiosity that wasn't quite profound at the beginning, had grown abruptly in size when he'd happened across Nico and Hazel at the hospital. At that moment, it had struck him. He'd felt it. Will couldn't remember any Nico or Hazel, couldn't seem to recall anyone with their faces either, and yet there was a very definite something there. An almost-familiarity, as though he _should_ know. As though he should and had forgotten.

Will didn't forget. He made sure he didn't forget. How could he have forgotten someone – some _ones_ – that he was rapidly coming to the conclusion were of greater significance than he'd considered? It wasn't just that Naomi was being so tight-lipped on the matter. Just like the familiarity, Will _felt_ it.

As the days passed into a week, Will found himself growing more and more agitated. It wasn't helping with his studies, for one, which by all rights should be occupying the primary seat of his attention. He'd even chose to volunteering at the hospital only one day of the weekend so he could spend the other poking around and chasing up elusive figures, disappearing patients and mythical creatures. Not that it turned up anything, but he was trying.

Will knew his friends noticed something was wrong. Cindy, being as openly observant as ever, had taken to wearing a near constant frown when she was around him. "Will, something's obviously really bothering you. What is it? Let me know so I can help?"

Ever the supportive friend, Cindy's 'help' was almost unavoidable. Will managed, however. He didn't know how he'd be able to explain his circumstances to anyone else. He didn't even know if they'd believe him. No one had seemed to think the gryphon was anything but an oversized bird of prey – for which Will still couldn't fathom the confusion – and when he'd asked once more at the hospital, Nico and Hazel's presence and the memory of their brief stay seemed all but erased from the minds of the staff. It was strange and disconcerting, and not only for the impossibility of it all. Will felt very alone for his circumstances. If he didn't have such confidence in his memories of meeting them and belief that his mom might know something, he truly might have begun to think he was falling into insanity.

Naomi had noticed too. Though she deflected and dodged Will's questions when he asked them of her, she was far from disregarding of him or attempting to distance herself. By the end of the week, as they shared their first dinner of six days, she paused in picking through her Japanese take-out and studied him across the table.

"Will, are you not sleeping well still?"

Will glanced up from his own dinner. "Sorry?"

"You're looking pale. And tired." Naomi frowned. "Are you not feeling well?"

Was he feeling well? Will had to wonder. Physically, he was fine, and yet despite the perhaps negligible encounters he'd had with two supposed strangers he couldn't help but fixate upon them. He knew them. Will had grown sure that, despite not remembering Nico and Hazel, being unable to recall anything about them, he knew them. And they knew him, he'd realised, or at least Hazel did he considered after thinking over the interactions he'd had with her. She'd called him by name and the more Will thought about it the more he realised that there could have been no way that she could have known it otherwise. No one had even mentioned it when they were together.

Will was gnawing over what little facts he had and drawing up blanks, and as a result he was almost tearing his hair out. Was he well? Physically, yes, but mentally… perhaps so much. And no, he wasn't sleeping well. Not at all.

Prodding a wedge of sushi with his chopsticks, Will shrugged. "I am tired."

"Is there something wrong?" Naomi asked, a worried edge to her words.

Lifting his gaze once more, Will fixed his mother with a stare. Was there something wrong? Surely she wasn't… she couldn't be so oblivious. It must be another dodging act. "Just a lot on my mind."

"Anything I can help you with? Is it school?"

 _Not school, but I'm sure you could help me if you wanted to_ , Will thought but didn't say. "Just thinking about things."

"Things?"

"That I've forgotten."

Naomi didn't reply to that. Will didn't need to be looking at her to see the sudden yet barely perceivable stillness that settled upon her. It lasted barely a moment before she seemed to shake herself out of it and return to her dinner with gusto. "Well, if it's any consolation, I'm sure it'll work out."

 _What an empty reassurance_ , Will couldn't help but think, perhaps a little unfairly. He loved his mom, but her obtuseness of the past week wasn't helping. What helped even less was when, that night, he had a dream.

It wasn't anything tangible. Will couldn't see any faces, couldn't hear any voices, and yet somehow he knew. In the way that he _felt_ , that he knew he'd forgotten something, that he knew he knew Nico and Hazel, Will felt it. The dream was foggy, disjointed, and he felt as though he was clawing his way through thick smoke in search of answers to the questions that, in the depths of his sleep, he couldn't even recall.

Then he heard it. Barely audible, yet it rung through his mind with a warm exasperation that bellied the words. _You're such an idiot…_

Will woke up with a start. Most of the dream was lost but for those words. The words and a feeling of utter loss for something he just couldn't remember. He didn't sleep again that night.

When morning finally came around, Will was already seated at the dining table and staring at the empty surface with glazed eyes. He heard his mom get up, heard her bustling in her room as she hastened to change for work and mutter to herself over snoozing bare minutes through her alarm. It was always the case with Naomi; she would always sleep through the first alarm, though it hardly mattered for Will knew she set it five minutes early anyway for just that eventuality.

Naomi didn't bypass the kitchen for a quick breakfast as she burst from her room and made for the door. Only to stop just before pulling it open, hand on the handle, as she caught sight of Will seated at the dining table. "Will? What are you doing up so early."

With rapid blinks, Will dragged his attention from the table towards his mom. As soon as he met her surprised gaze, she frowned in sudden concern. She half-turned, taking a step towards him. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? You really don't look well."

Will stared at his mom for a moment before straightening slightly in his seat. "Mom. Mom, please tell me."

Naomi stilled further in her immobility in a way Will had noticed she did a lot of late. Her eyes didn't quite widen in fear but it was a near thing. "Will –"

"Please, Mom." Will rose from his seat but suppressed the urge to approach her, fingers curling over the back of his chair. "I know you know. You have to know. And I – I can't _remember_."

A flicker of something distinctly pained flashed across Naomi's face. She even winced, closing her eyes briefly. "Will, please don't ask this of me. I can't tell you."

"But you do know?"

"Will, don't ask."

"Why not?"

"It's not my place to tell you."

Will's grasp tightened on the back of his chair. "But no one else knows. There's no one else I can ask. And you could tell me. Please, Mom, I need to know. I can't – it's driving me insane."

Naomi winced once more. "Will –"

"I don't even have to know all of it. Just a little bit. Just enough."

"Will, I can't. I made a promise."

"And that's more important than helping me? I need you, Mom. I need you to help me."

Very real pain tightened Naomi's face. Her hand clenched the door handle as though she was half tempted to flee the room. She seemed to struggle with herself as she fought to speak. "I would tell you. I would tell you if I could. But Will, it's not just my secret to tell. And I know you're hurting, I know you think you need to know, but this is for the better. Really, it is."

An aching pain that Will hadn't even realised had been tightening his chest for hours now suddenly grew sharply painful. "Mom, please," he begged, and he could hear his own voice wavering pathetically. "I know I've forgotten something. I know it, and I don't know how but I know – I _know_ it's important. It's killing me not knowing."

Naomi stared at him and through his desperation Will saw something like tears well in her eyes. He felt bad for that. He didn't want to hurt his mom, but over the past week he'd grown only more and more desperate, sure that he was missing something. That he'd somehow forgotten something. Nico, Hazel… something. Last night had been one push too many. He _needed to know_.

For a moment Will thought his mom might tell him. He really did and she even drew a sharp breath as though to speak in a gushing admission. But a second later she pressed her lips together, squeezed her eyes closed and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Will. I can't." Then she turned and really did flee. Will was left standing in the middle of the flat, staring after her with his hands suddenly limp and falling from the back of his chair to his sides.

She'd left. She'd left and she hadn't told him. Why it was so important Will didn't even know except that it _felt_ important, and that hurt almost more than his mom's silence on the matter. It was important and she hadn't told him. Sinking back into his chair, Will slumped in upon himself.

That was how Naomi found him when she returned at six o'clock that night. Not that he'd stayed there all day, of course, but Will hadn't done much else with himself and found that he'd inevitably returned to his seat at the table. For the first time in weeks he couldn't bring himself to even go to the hospital. A combination of maudlin tiredness and disconsolate resignation settled upon him and seemed to weigh him down. He didn't know where it came from but that ignorance didn't help to lessen it any.

After a twelve hour day, Naomi was clearly weary as she let herself back into the flat. She paused just inside the door, however, and her eyes immediately drew towards Will.

Will returned her stare. He was detachedly angry with her in a way that he very rarely had been in his life, though he couldn't really bring himself to act upon that anger anymore. He was tired, and upset that his mom wouldn't help him, despite how childish such a desperate need might seem. She was his mom. Why wasn't she helping him with something that he could only see as so simple? What could it hurt?

Except that, despite these thoughts, when Will looked at Naomi, saw her pale face and heavy eyes and the exhaustion that settled upon her too deep to be just from work, he thrust his own concerns aside. Rising to his feet, he offered a pained attempt at a smile. "How was your day?"

Naomi stared at him in turn for a long moment before returning his smile just as weakly. "Fine," she said, and it was perhaps as short a reply as she'd ever given to the question.

Swallowing back the thickness in his throat, Will rose to his feet and took a deep, overly jovial breath. "I'm going to make something of dinner. Any requests?"

Naomi's smile turned slightly more genuine this time. "I love you, sweetheart, but if you're going to cook I think we both know what it will be."

Will nodded and smiled more sincerely himself at that. It was true. For whatever reason, Will had never been a good hand at cooking. He just didn't have the innate knack for it. He and his mom had long ago discovered that perhaps the only thing he was capable of making without burning the flat down was spaghetti bolognaise. Why spaghetti Will didn't know but he didn't question it; he thought he might lose whatever touch he had should he do so.

"True," Will said, starting towards the kitchen. "Did you want to take a shower or something while I'm cooking?"

Naomi nodded slightly, still a little feebly. She looked thin and almost a little lost standing grounded just inside the door, watching him. "That would be lovely. I think I might."

"Sure," Will acknowledged, then set about pulling pots from the draws and running the biggest with water. He glanced only once over his shoulder towards his mom as she made her way down towards the bathroom. Her phone was out and she was tapping away at it, a frown upon her brow. The glance she spared Will on her way, however, quickly erased it. She disappeared with another small smile into her room.

Dinner wasn't spectacular. It rarely was in their house; whatever culinary lacking Will had was very obviously inherited from his mom. It was nice enough, however, and despite the distress of that morning and the despair Will had been crushed beneath for most of the day, he felt better for it. It had been hard to bite his tongue on the very words he'd blurted out. At least now Naomi knew how he felt on the matter, even if she didn't – couldn't? – help.

For herself, Naomi seemed to be trying to keep a light-hearted conversation going, and Will did his best to assist her. He couldn't help but notice the glances she spared her phone where it sat on the table beside her, or those she shot to the door almost compulsively before catching herself and dropping her gaze towards her dinner once more.

When she actually pressed her phone to life for the second time to check for messages – something that was unusual enough in itself because Naomi usually made a point of leaving her phone untouched when they spent time together – Will couldn't help but ask. "Are you waiting for a call from someone?"

His mom twitched slightly as though she'd been called out before shooting Will a slightly wavering smile. "Um…" She began, clearly reluctant to admit anything.

It turned out she didn't have to, however, for that second her phone buzzed with an incoming message. Naomi snatched it up and tapped it open so fast it was almost as though she thought it might disappear if she hesitated. She stared at the screen silently for a moment and Will stared at her.

With a slow, shaking breath, Naomi lifted her gaze towards Will. "I've got something for you, Will. I've – I don't know how much it will… I don't know, but…"

For a second, Will didn't know what she was talking about, but it rapidly dawned upon him. Was she…? Had Naomi…? After that morning he hadn't thought she'd ever rescind on her reluctance, but maybe… "What are you talking about?"

Rising to her feet, Naomi clutched her phone to her chest. Tension rippled settled upon her, tightening her face and making the lines around her eyes stand out more pronouncedly. "Will, you mustn't push this. Just – just take this slow. I don't know if anything will come of it, but it's worth a try."

Will could feel his heart beating a steadily rising rate in his chest, heard his breath hitch slightly. "Mom, what's going on?"

"Just – just sit still for a moment, alright? Don't act irrationally." Naomi fastened a pointed stare upon Will for a long moment before slowly, almost tentatively, she started towards the door. There was a pause as her hand rested upon the doorknob and Will couldn't move for it. He could only stare, because somehow… somehow he knew that…

Naomi opened the door only barely, as though nervous. Her voice was little more than a murmur when she spoke. "Thank you for coming. I'm sorry it's such short notice."

"It's fine. What's wrong?"

Will's spine snapped straight and he almost lurched to his feet the second he heard the sound of Nico's voice. He'd only heard it once before, just the once and only briefly, yet he remembered it . He doubted he would ever forget it. The grasp he still had on his fork was so tight Will wouldn't have been surprised had the sturdy metal snapped in two.

"Would you come in for a second?" Naomi asked, then edged backwards and opened the door slightly further open.

Nico stepped inside with the silent tread of a ghost, despite his heavy boots. He looked a little ghostly too, just as pale as when Will had first seen him and similarly clad in that unerring black. He wore a hoodie beneath his bomber jacket, the hood pulled up over his shaggy hair to shadow his face some. Nico was barely as tall as Naomi but he still somehow breathed intimidation.

And he looked recovered. Will could tell as he stared, the clinical part of his mind assessing the ease of his step. In two weeks, somehow – almost incredibly, given what Will had read of his file – his wounds had healed to no longer trouble him. In the detached part of his mind that wasn't having a crazed attack of confused incredulity, Will was relieved. The rest… he was staring at Nico, scared to even blink for the thought he might vanish if he did. Until that moment, Will had only been about ninety-nine-point-nine per cent sure that Nico was a real person and not just a product of Will's abrupt insanity.

Nico didn't realise he was in the room at first. He was glancing over his shoulder at Naomi with a slight furrow on his brow, and there was a familiarity in his glance that told Will more than words could. Nico knew his mom. He definitely knew her. That much was apparent even without the knowledge that she had apparently called him and he'd come to her aid upon request.

But then Naomi closed the door and Nico turned around. His gaze fastened on Will and Will swore he saw him blanch a shade paler. A half step backwards and he snapped his attention back towards Naomi. "Naomi, what the fuck is this?" He hissed sharply.

Will was rising to his feet, his confusion and incredulity, surprise and something like unexpected that felt almost like…longing? rising within him, but Naomi was babbling before he could get a word out. "It's not what it looks like, Nico. I didn't say anything. I _didn't_ , and I've kept my promise. But it's pointless now, because –"

"It is not fucking pointless," Nico interrupted, his voice sharp and biting, drowning out Naomi's. She visibly flinched. "What in Hades do you think we've been doing, Naomi?"

"It doesn't matter, though," Naomi said, her voice insistent and just a little pleading. Will had never heard her like that before. "It doesn't matter, Nico, because he remembers."

"He does _not_."

"He does," Naomi insisted. "Or at least he remembers something. He remembers you."

"He. Does _._ Not _,_ " Nico ground out, and the murderous darkening of his eyes, the clenching of his fists at his sides, made Will suddenly concerned for his mom. He remembered all too well that Nico was more than capable of wielding a sword. He was clearly a dangerous sort, regardless of what else he was. Regardless of the fact that, at least at Will, he couldn't imagine him launching an attack.

"Hey, wait," Will said, taking a step forwards and raising a placating hand towards Nico. It was Nico's turn to flinch this time and he took another half a step backwards towards the door as though Will was the one intimidating him. Strange. "Hold on a second, can we slow down?" He glanced between the two of them. "Will someone tell me what's going on?"

Nico was glaring, at Naomi then at Will, but his paleness and what Will could make out to be a faint trembling of his hands suggested he was far from simply angry. Scared. For some reason, though he didn't know him, Will knew he was scared. "We will fucking not," Nico said. Then he swung his attention back to Naomi. "This is what you called me about?"

"He knows, Nico –"

"No he doesn't," Nico snapped. "He doesn't and he never will again. Ever."

Something about Nico's words stung Will like a slap in the face. Never had he wanted to know what he had clearly forgotten so greatly. "Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

Nico swung his gaze back towards him and the murderous darkness morphed into something else. Something… strange. Unexpected. If Will were to call it anything it would be pained. It lasted only for a moment, however, before Naomi spoke and drew Nico's attention once more. Not in answer to Will's question but in almost a plea to Nico. "Look, he does remember. I know it's impossible, but he does remember something. It's obviously upsetting him, Nico, and I want to help him. I want to help you, too, because this – these past two years – you can't keep this up forever –"

"Don't tell me what the fuck I can't do," Nico snapped so sharply his words alone could have chiselled diamonds. "Stay out of it, Naomi."

"Nico, I'm just trying to –"

"You should be _happy_. You should be happy that he's out of it. And you _promised_ , Naomi."

Everything was a mess of confusion and anger that Will didn't understand a word of. He didn't like being talked about as though he wasn't in the room. He didn't like how Nico was speaking to his mom either, despite the fact that her wince suggested she felt she deserved it. And yet he was stunned, struggling to grasp at the tattered pieces of information that had been thrown past him and couldn't even think to speak in her defence.

"He wants to know, Nico!" Naomi all but shouted. It was the loudest Will had heard her speak in a long time, and the highest. She sounded almost shrill. "But more than that, it's not fair. It's not fair for anyone, not you, not Will who has a right to know –"

"So you'd prefer he wound up dead one day, would you?" Nico interrupted in a slice of sword-sharp words.

Naomi was silenced.

Will glanced between them. He could feel his eyes blown wide, his mouth hanging open, and though he longed to cross the room he couldn't seem to make his legs move. Die? What were they talking about? Will was going to die? Not that he knew of, at least. And what was that; fairness to Nico? To Will? What the _fuck_ was going on?

Will didn't get the chance to work out what it was. He didn't get a moment to get a word in, for Nico drew his gaze towards him once more and though that pained expression surfaced once more it was quickly erased beneath the scowl that twisted his thin face. He raised a hand and pointed a deliberate finger at Will. "This. Is not your problem. I don't care what you think, just pull your fucking nose out of it.' He jabbed his finger towards Will. "Just go and be the perfect little med student you _should_ be."

Turning, Nico grabbed the doorknob and practically ripped the door from its hinges as he tore it open. He spared Naomi one more glaring glance. "Don't call me if it's about stupid shit, Naomi. I thought you were smarter than that." Then he left.

Will stared after him. He stared at the empty doorway, the hallway beyond lit by overhead lights and the pale hallway wall across from their flat. Nico's absence was abrupt and the silence left in his wake left a gaping hole in the room. Will didn't… he didn't know how he felt about it but was sure that emptiness was wrong.

With a struggle he managed to drag his gaze towards Naomi. She was staring after Nico too, her expression tightened in a way that must have been almost painful for its severity. As though she could feel Will's attention upon her, she glanced his way. Her face crumpled just a little. "I'm sorry, Will."

Will knew at that moment. He knew that Naomi wouldn't let herself be asked further, that she wouldn't give anything else up. He didn't know why Nico had spoken as he did, what it all meant, what he was keeping from Will and why he'd forgotten, but he knew that much. Naomi wouldn't give him answers.

Will was running through the door after Nico before he'd even realised he was moving.

* * *

Striding down the stairs, it was all Nico could do to keep from running. He wanted to run, he did, but there was blurriness in his eyes and he could hardly see where he was going. He wasn't crying, because Nico didn't let himself cry, but it was certainly hard to make out the steps beneath his feet.

Naomi. How could she do that? Nico couldn't believe she'd been so stupid, so utterly cruel, as to ask him over when Will was there. More than that, Nico understood what she was really asking him. She wanted him to tell Will. To tell him everything, all that he'd forgotten, all that he'd never remember again.

Naomi didn't seem to realise. Will was never going to remember that. Ever.

It hurt. It hurt terribly, deep in Nico's chest in a way that no blow from a monster could manage. He'd been looking out for Will for years but always from afar. Always without his notice and just to make sure that the monsters Will didn't even know existed didn't kill him. He was a demigod, and no matter the precautions they took to attempt to avoid the sweeping radar of the creatures that hounded every demigod's footsteps, he was at risk.

Nico had a job and his job was to protect people. At Camp and out in the wider world. It helped that his shadow travel could get him to where he was needed most with the greatest speed and more reliably than Hazel could manage with her sporadic attempts. Will… Nico could claim that Will was just one more demigod that he was protecting in such a manner. It was a lie, but he could claim it.

For two years Nico had avoided Will's notice, had made sure the monsters stayed away from him for the threats he and his friends imposed upon them as much as for the vanquishing he routinely enacted. And yet in the past month, he'd happened across Will three times. Three times Will had actually seen him. Was he getting sloppy or were the monster attacks just getting worse?

Nico didn't know which would be the worse possibility.

Shouldering his way through the double doors of the expensive apartment building, he strode out onto the road illuminated against the night by intermittent streetlights. The road itself was all but empty, despite it being barely past seven o'clock, with nothing but still and silent cars perched outside their owner's homes as said owners rugged up against the rapidly chilling autumn weather. Nico spared a cursory glance around himself as he struggled to blink his eyes clear – one could never be too careful when monsters sprung at times quite literally from the shadows – before turning and striding down the sidewalk as far away from the Solace flat as he could.

Only to hear the doors bang open behind him before he'd taken a dozen steps.

A glance over his shoulder showed Nico that Will hadn't bothered to throw a jacket over his thin shirt and track pants, nor even a pair of shoes on before racing after him. He was breathing heavily, though seemingly less in exertion than in the urgency that twisted his expression. For a moment, just as he had been frozen upon first seeing him in the flat, Nico could only stare.

He'd seen Will from afar. He'd seen him from afar a hell of a lot, but it was entirely different up close. His golden hair turned darker in the night, curls a mess hanging to the back of his neck. His strong but gentle hands that even as Nico paused flung the door shut behind him as he ran after him. His straight nose, heavy brow, his lips that – that Nico couldn't let himself stare at because –

 _Wide smiles and barks of laughter, poking a tongue out teasingly because he realised Nico couldn't help but grin at the stupid expression, soft kisses and softer whispers…_

Nico spun on his heel and started away from him, almost breaking into a run. _I can't deal with this. It's not fair._

"Nico, wait!"

At the sound of Will's voice, that he called Nico's name, Nico could only cringe and pick up his step. Except that Will suddenly appearing at his side and, grabbing his shoulder, drew him to a jerking stop.

With more force than was probably necessary, Nico threw himself from his grasp. "Get the fuck off me," he hissed, spinning towards Will.

Will started back slightly as though surprised by the ferocity of Nico's tone. It hurt to see him abruptly wary of Nico, as though he feared he might snap and lash out at him, but Nico had to admit that it was warranted. Nico was acting aggressively as it was, and after all, it wasn't like Will could remember him. It wasn't like he could remember that – that –

 _That Will would be the last person in the world I'd ever hurt._

Will was raising his hands as though in placation, the wariness fading from his face to be replaced by something that was almost soothing. Like one might look at an cornered animal turned fearfully aggressive. "Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to grab you like that. I just wanted to talk to you."

"We're not talking," Nico said shortly, turning on his heel to start away from him once more.

Only for Will to skirt around him and plant himself before him, effectively blocking his way. "Please," he said, his tone desperate. "Please, I've just got to know."

 _No you don't._ "The fuck you do."

"I remember –"

"No you don't. You don't remember anything."

Will's lips thinned as he folded them together in a fit of disgruntlement. Even so, he pressed on. "Maybe not. But you know what I'm talking about. I know – I _knew_ you. You could tell me."

 _Fucking Naomi. She set me up for this._ Nico fought the urge to close his eyes and shrink into himself. That Will was asking this of him, that he seemed to so desperately want it… _I'm not going to tell him. I won't._ "It's none of your concern."

"It is," Will insisted. He heaved a gushing exhalation that puffed a vaguely pale mist into the cold air. "It is, because it's me, isn't it? I knew you and –"

 _Please stop saying that,_ Nico winced internally. Knew. It was very much past tense. "Stick your nose out of things that don't concern you," he said, and tried once more to continue his escape.

Will neatly stepped in front of him once more. "It does concern me," he repeated. "Please, I'm begging you. I don't know what it is but I can feel it's important and it's killing me."

 _It's killing you?_ Nico wanted to spit out. Will didn't know the half of it, and though it wasn't his fault, it didn't stop Nico from feeling angry with him for it. "I'm not telling you. Don't ask me again."

"Or what?" Will asked, and a sudden hardness to his words made it almost a threat. Nico knew that hardness; Will was a nice person, but when he got annoyed, frustrated, daresay even angry, he was fierce. "Or you'll what?"

"You don't want to know," Nico said lowly. He didn't even know, but the threat sounded good enough.

Will's lips thinned once more. "Or you'll take my memories away again?"

His words hit Nico with the force of a semi-trailer. For a second, Nico could only stare, shocked. Did Will just -? Did he just accuse Nico of -? In an instant, Nico was furious.

It wasn't fair.

None of it was fair.

He didn't ask for this, didn't ask for Will to forget and hated it, but –

He found himself shouting in a sudden burst of pained anger. "You're the one that asked to forget, Will!"

Nico could have slapped a hand across his mouth. He would have had it done anything to retract his words. It wouldn't have though. It didn't erase them, no matter how much Nico instantly regretted speaking them. That wasn't fair. Hadn't been fair. Will was… Will had asked, it was true, but he hadn't… it wasn't…

Will stared at his with his blue eyes darkened in the night yet blown wide. He stared in utter confusion and it was that confusion that hurt the most. He really didn't remember. No matter what Naomi thought, he didn't remember. It hurt so badly, the pain stronger than it had been in years, that Nico almost crumpled beneath it.

He couldn't stay a moment longer. It was stupid of him to do it, but Nico couldn't pause even to turn tail and run. Dragging his shadows around himself, Nico sunk into the night and fled from Will Solace and his entirely too sincere desperation.


	4. Chapter 4 - Monsters and Men

A/N: Just wanted to say a special thank you to **EsterOfPersia** , **Werewolf Darcy** and **fallenangel860** for your lovely reviews these past chapters. This one is for you guys!

* * *

 **Chapter 4: Monsters and Men**

Will stared fixedly at his hand. He barely listened to Dr Bill Baxton as he muttered into his microphone at the front of the lecture hall. He should be listening, should be taking notes the same as even Nathan was typing furiously at his side on his laptop. But he wasn't. Not for the first time in the past week, Will was… distracted.

His hand still felt cold. Days after Nico had disappeared into the night, quite literally somehow disappeared into thin air as though swallowed by the shadows, Will could feel where his hand had passed through the chilling wisps of darkness that were all he'd been able to touch as he reached for him. Nico had disappeared, and those shadows had followed an instant later.

They'd been real. Cold and insubstantial, but definitely there. And Will remembered them. No, he didn't quite _remember_ , but he could recall the feeling of them. That strange, dry coldness that seemed to touch not quite his skin but the bones within his fingers… he knew that feeling. It was the same recollection that he had when he thought of Nico, of Hazel, of the gryphon even.

Will hadn't asked his mom further questions. He hadn't been able to push himself to when, after staring for so long at the point Nico had disappeared in stunned incomprehension that he'd begun to tremble from the cold night air, he'd returned to the flat. Naomi was slumped back at the dinner table, bowed over her half-eaten dinner. Her head had fallen into her hands, hiding her face, and when Will closed the door she spoke in muffled words.

"I'm sorry, Will. I'm so sorry."

Naomi didn't say what she was sorry for and she didn't expand upon it. She didn't say anything on the subject afterwards at all, and Will couldn't find it in himself to push her to. The next morning, as Will had caught a bare glimpse of her before she'd disappeared to work once more, it had been to the sight of her haggard visage and a regretful glance in Will's direction. No explanation, though. None, and Will wouldn't ask.

He still wanted to know, and even more desperately than before, if it was possible. For something so small – if unbelievable in that mythical creatures and disappearing people were _definitely_ impossible – it had entirely consumed Will's mind. He'd been a studious person since he'd begun college, but for the first time his studies came second.

Will needed to know. It wasn't just a want anymore. He needed it. There was a space in the back of his mind that he hadn't even noticed yet was growing more and more apparent the longer he contemplated it, and Will knew it had once been filled with the memories he'd somehow, impossibly, forgotten. He suddenly empathised with amputee patients and the feeling of their missing limb still attached.

It was supernatural. It was impossible. It was strange and unbelievable and apparently no one but Will, his mom and Nico – and possibly Hazel – seemed to realise that anything was worthy of comment. Will knew that all of it, not just the memories that he'd forgotten but everything else from the creatures to Nico's disappearing act, should have boggled him further. It should have. And yet…

Why was it that it somehow seemed to make sense? It shouldn't have, but it did.

As such, Will couldn't leave it alone. He couldn't and didn't want to. Unfortunately for him, internet searches and talking to everyone he came across in the hopes that they had perhaps met someone named Nico was drawing blanks. It was incredibly frustrating.

"What's wrong with your hand?"

Will lifted his gaze towards Nathan at his question, to where Nathan was nodding at his still upraised hand with eyebrow raised questioningly. As Will shifted his attention towards him, dragging himself from his thoughts, he realised that the lecture was over and he'd missed the better part of it. Nathan was already folding his laptop closed and shoving it carelessly into his bag as he rose to standing.

Dropping his gaze back down to his fingers, Will shrugged as he rose to his feet alongside his friend. "Nothing."

"Nothing, but you've been staring at it for the better part of an hour?" Nathan smirked, quirking an eyebrow so the ring studded in it twitched distractingly.

"Just thinking," Will said, slinging his bag over his shoulder and hauling his books into his arms.

"You've been doing that a lot lately."

Will smiled, if a little tiredly. Damn but he was tired. Sleep deprivation due to frustratingly insubstantial dreams was really getting to him. "Is that a bad thing?"

Nathan grinned, rolling his eyes. "I'm just saying that you're not usually the pensive type. What's gotten into you?"

Falling into step alongside Nathan as they left the lecture hall, Will sighed. "Just… same old. You're sure you've never heard of someone called Nico before?"

"Oh, that's it?" Nathan rolled his eyes once more before bumping his shoulder into Will's. "You're still looking for that guy?"

"Yeah, still looking."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be found?"

 _Yeah, I gathered that_. "I just need – want to talk to him."

Nathan's smirk became all too knowing. "Will, I think he's not interested. Don't know why, to be honest – I mean, you're not my type but I can see the appeal for someone that swung your way – but seems pretty cut and dry to me. Maybe you should just drop it."

Will sighed, exasperated. Trust Nathan to think in that direction. "I'm not – it's not about – I mean, I'm not interested in –"

"Sure you're not," Nathan interrupted him, his smirk widening. "You just think about him for most of the day and ask every student you come across if they've heard of him." He shook his head. "Bit of a looker, is he? Bona fide Helen of Troy reborn?"

Will muttered his denials though he knew Nathan would ignore him. His friend was wrong. Nathan was so wrong, because that _wasn't_ the reason that Will wanted to find Nico. He had questions, questions he desperately wanted answered, impossibilities that he wanted explained and memories that he wanted returned to him.

 _"You're the one that asked to forget, Will!"_

That. That one statement, spoken in outburst and with more pain and anguish that Will had expected from the frowning, aggressively snapping Nico – that was what he wanted to ask about the most. He didn't know what that meant, but it was definitely important. Definitely.

Will didn't try to explain any of that to Nathan, and not only because he knew Nathan wouldn't understand, even if he did believe him. He didn't try because though he denied him, Nathan wasn't entirely far from the truth.

Will blamed it on that feeling. The feeling that wasn't a memory but somehow _almost_ was, almost triggered thoughts and recollections but not quite. When Will thought about Nico, he felt it, a warmth and almost longing the likes that he knew he shouldn't given that he didn't know him, had only seen him angry or brutally killing a mythical creature when not passed out in hospital. And yet Will felt it. He'd felt that longing more than enough in the past weeks with increasing fervour when he thought of him and it wouldn't leave him alone.

Besides, Nico might not be Helen of Troy – was the complete opposite in most ways, actually – but he had a very definite charm. No, maybe charm wasn't quite the right word. He was certainly good-looking in a dark and sombre sort of way, and would likely be even be more so if he appeared less tired and returned his skin colour to something approaching healthy. Will thought he might be Italian from his colouration, from the hint of his accent, and couldn't help but find that even more of a turn on.

Not that Will was thinking about that specifically. It just happened, just arose as a passing thought when he found himself thinking about Nico every other second of the day. And it didn't help that he hadn't had a partner, boy or girl, for… God, he couldn't even remember how long, and that was saying something because he was usually very good at remembering. Who had he last gone out with, anyway? Will would have to think about that.

Stepping out from the artificially-lit hallway and into the afternoon air, Will spared a moment to wave farewell to Nathan before turning and starting in the direction of the bus stop. "You coming to June's tomorrow night?" Nathan called after him.

Will shrugged as he glanced over his shoulder. "I'll see."

"Call me," Nathan bellowed, drawing more than a few eyes his way. "And don't spend the afternoon pining for a guy who's not interested!"

It would have been embarrassing, except that Will was pretty sure the entire college knew of Nathan's embarrassing outbursts. Shaking his head, he turned and continued down one-sixty-eighth in the direction of the bus stop. Pining? Maybe he was pining a little bit – or a lot – but not in the way that Nathan assumed. And despite Nathan's request, Will knew he would be looking that afternoon. Cindy said that her boyfriend Kevin had a friend who had heard from another friend whose cousin or something or other might be able to help him out. Will sincerely doubted that, but he would follow it up anyway.

As Will rounded the corner, however, he saw it. Or them, because there was definitely more than one of them. More than one of what, Will wasn't quite sure, but they were definitely not creatures that Will had ever seen before and from the mish-mash of human and what looked to be sharp-toothed bats they weren't anything of this world either. More correctly mythological, Will would hazard a guess if he was going to guess at all.

He was running before he realised it, awkwardly for what he carried, and nearly got himself run over as he darted across the road in the direction that the bat-winged women flew. Angry motor vehicle beeps followed after him, but Will hardly noticed. He kept his eyes locked on the creatures as they swept down the street away from him.

Will wasn't the only one to notice either, but he doubted that anyone else saw what they really were. Cries of alarm and even concern sounded as gazes drew towards them with their flight, and Will's suspicions were confirmed when he heard someone say, "What the hell are bats doing out this early in the evening?" Bats? Really? They would be fucking huge bats if they were.

It was a mad chase, but Will thought he was gaining on them. Eyes locked on their flight, he heard his breath panting in his ears, barely spared a moment to throw an apology over his shoulder as he nearly tripped over a woman with a pram in his distraction. He ran as though his life depended on it, though didn't know what he expected to find, what he thought he was going to do if he caught up to them. Will didn't think about that, though. These creatures were the closest to what he'd been searching for that he'd happened across in days.

They almost disappeared as, descending into a less frantically traffic-ridden region of the city and wedged between two close-standing buildings, the pair of bat-winged women swept. Will dodged past a clutch of slow-walking pedestrians, darted across the road on the tail end of a flashing red signal and dove into the narrow alley after them. The narrow alley empty but for the creatures.

Only to skid to a stop as he did.

Will didn't know what he'd been expecting. He hadn't gotten a good look at the women from the distance he'd chased them and their swooping motions, but the reality was a horrifying mixture of creatures that Will suspected should have been more terrifying to him than it was. Except that, as he'd almost come to expect, it felt strangely… familiar. More readily familiar this time, as though he was unconsciously already expecting it.

The two creatures were woman-shaped, but only vaguely. That much was apparent for more than their enormous bat wings that draped in leathery folds to the ground behind them. Sharp, overlong teeth, like a vicious rendition of the modern vampire, curled over their lips in a snarl. Flaming hair dangled in wayward tresses over deathly pale faces, half-blinding red eyes. Even more strangely than that, however, their legs – was that a donkey leg? And the other, it looked to be made from metal on the both of them. Copper, or maybe bronze from the colour.

Will stared as the pair hobbled down the street away from him, heads bowed and muttering as they half turned to one another. They spoke, that much was apparent. Will could hear them. A flicker of eagerness, excitement even, rose within him and he almost opened his mouth to call out to them. Maybe they could help him out, regardless of how admittedly daunting such a confrontation seemed? Except that, when Will made out their words, he instantly bit his tongue.

"… filthy cretin, sneaking away like that. He thinks he can give us the slip? Is he playing with us, leading us on a wild chase like that?"

"The shadowy ones are always the hardest to hunt down," the one of the left said to her fellow, grumbling. The way they spoke was mangled, as though they struggled to enunciate past their teeth. "We'll get him, though. What, is he going to run forever?"

"They don't make demigods like they used to," the one of the right whined. "What happened to the good old days where they were vanquished as often as we?"

 _Demigods?_ Will was frozen in place several steps into the mouth of the alley. _Actual demigods? What do they…? And the shadowy ones?_ He wasn't sure who they referred to exactly, but the image of Nico disappearing into folds of darkness, the feel of dry chill on his fingers, rose to mind. Where they chasing Nico?

Will didn't get a chance to think further, for as luck would have it apparently his arrival wasn't as discrete as he'd assumed. One of the bat-winged women glanced sharply over her shoulder as though suddenly realising they had an audience. "Hey, Limmi, look! We've got another one!"

The second woman… thing, Limmi, turned as her fellow smacked her arm for attention. A disgruntled frown morphed into a wide grin of hungry delight. "Oh, how delightful. See, Mago, I knew this part of town was good pickings for demigods."

Will blinked, flicking his gaze between them both. What? "Sorry, what are you -?"

"And look, he talks, too," Mago crooned. In a disconcerting slithering step that resounded with the crunch of her metal leg and the clop of her donkey's hoof, she started back down the alley towards Will. "What's this, books? No sword or bow, demigod?"

Before Will could even think past his incomprehension for Mago's words, Limmi was speaking right on her tail. "Unprotected and defenceless, are you, little demigod." She chuckled. "A son of Apollo, looks like. Well, we all know they're not as much fighters as the rest of them. Healers and archers the lot of you." She snickered once more.

"Son of -? What are you -?" Will heard his voice crack as he took a step back from the approaching creatures. He hadn't realised he'd come so far into the alley in pursuit of them but abruptly wanted the safety of surrounding passers-by. Not that such an audience had done much good with the gryphon, but… "What are you talking about? Apollo, like the Greek God Apollo? What?"

Mago cocked her head curiously. Her grin became leering. "Oh, lookie here, Limmi, I think we've got an easy one. Is it possible that he doesn't even know?"

"Seems unlikely, but we might have sprung lucky," Limmi replied.

Will had no idea what they were talking about, but he knew in an instant that he was in trouble. There was nothing but predatory glee upon the creatures' faces, and Will couldn't help but speculate that he was most likely their prey. And he really was defenceless. But surely they wouldn't do anything to him, would they? They wouldn't attack him, surely. Would they?

Will's surety abruptly diminished as the creatures fell into what could only be considered a stalking crouch. Prowling forwards even as Will retreated, their wings rose and flaring in a fashion that was nothing if not threatening. Will stumbled backwards, spared a glance over his shoulder and almost tripped, when –

"Get out of their way, you idiot!"

Will didn't get the chance to follow the barked orders. A force collided into him from nowhere, sweeping his legs out from beneath him and slamming him into a heap of textbooks, bags and flailing limbs. A shriek sounded from the direction of the bat-women and in a scramble Will hastened to right himself, to see, to know what was happening and flee the scene if he couldn't fight back. Could he even fight back? He had some pretty hefty textbooks…

But he didn't need to. As Will rolled onto all fours, he dragged his attention down the alley once more and beheld the mad fight ensuing. The bat-women were in a struggle of almost-flight and swinging arms, fingers curved like claws that extended into viciously sharp nails as they leapt around one another. Or more correctly, as they leapt to avoid being speared by Nico's sword as it sliced towards them.

Nico fought in a frenzy that was somehow both graceful and terrifying. He moved as though his long black sword was an extension of his arm, leaping and dancing out of the way of the creatures' slashing attempts to strike back. He rolled to the ground, leapt to his feet and threw a frighteningly fast swipe at one of the creatures before jumping backwards, pressing briefly against the wall of the building's brick façade. A split second later, he was using it as a launching pad to throw himself forwards once more.

Will didn't know all that much about fighting. Or at least he thought he didn't, but he could see at barely a glance that Nico was incredible. That he had an almost professional skill with the sword, his motions controlled and bone breaking in their strength, and that he would win. Even two against one, Will knew that. As he stared at the scene playing out before him, listened to the animalistic shrieks of the bat-women, their fierce hisses, the whistle of Nico's sword as he struck and parried and swept impossibly fast blows, Will knew.

He didn't even have the presence of mind to rise to his feet before it was over. In a manoeuvre that Will couldn't quite understand but somehow seemed to involve Nico twisting in a completely unnatural fashion, turning a jump and smashing his sword through the skull of what Will thought was Limmi, it was as good as done. Mago followed shortly after her companion, and in barely a handful of seconds there was nothing left of the two of them but a fine mist of golden dust hanging in the air.

Just as he had with the gryphon attack, Nico swiped at the dust with his nose scrunched slightly in distaste before sheathing his sword over his shoulder. He was breathing shortly but not nearly as heavily as Will thought he should be for such a performance. It was almost as though he'd done it a thousand times before.

Had he? Nico carried a sword around with him, so maybe killing threatening mythological creatures was his day job.

Will still hadn't managed to get his bearings, could feel a strange rush of adrenaline and a need for action surprisingly other than flight – what, to attack? Will didn't think so even if his body was itching him to throw himself on the offensive, even as he recalled his sporadic thought of using his textbooks as a weapon. His heart was pounding in his chest from a mixture of fear and that adrenaline and it was all he could do to clamber to his feel, hauling his laptop bag with him. His books were a mess of scattered pages around him.

Almost before Will found his feet, Nico was turning towards him and that frown he'd worn the first time – the first? – that Will had seen him was firmly affixed to his face. "What were you doing?" He demanded. "Did you really just chase after the empousai when you saw them? You're such an idiot."

At Nico's words, Will couldn't help but start. _You're such an idiot…_ They were – those words, he knew them. All of a sudden, a rush of recollection, of the dream that had been nagging at him for days now, drew forth. Will took a stumbling step forward, unconsciously raising a hand to point at Nico. "I dreamed about you."

It was entirely irrelevant to the situation. Will had just seen Nico take on a pair of mythical creatures for the second time – empousai he'd called them – and thoroughly trounce them in what he could only perceive as being Will's defence, but in the absence of immediate threat, Will's obsessive need to know rose to the surface. His desperation. That _Nico_ was right before him, and he could – he could maybe ask him questions. Demand an explanation.

 _Or just talk to him. Talking would be good. Nice_. Will wasn't sure where that thought came from but found himself agreeing to it nonetheless.

Apparently, Will's words were as unexpected to Nico as they were to himself. Nico frown abruptly cleared in exchange for rapid blinks of surprise, eyebrows rising in a crease of confusion instead. He looked suddenly younger and a lot less sure of himself than he did when he frowned. Will kind of liked that. "What?"

"I dreamed about you," Will said again. Then he heard how that sounded. "Not in a weird way, I swear."

"Not in a weird way?" Nico said dubiously.

"I swear, not in any – any untoward fashion." Will felt his cheeks flush slightly and forcibly thrust his embarrassment aside. He took another step towards Nico. "But that's not important. I've been looking for you all week. Please, I just want to ask you some questions."

With Will's step forwards, Nico stepped backwards. His surprise abruptly faded to be replaced with his guarded frown once more. "I'm not talking to you."

"Please, I just –"

"I fucking told you, Will. Back off. It's not your concern."

"It's my life!" Will exclaimed, not quite sure where the words came from. "You said last time that I'd chosen to forget. Why? Why did I do that? And forget what?"

"Will, don't –"

"What were those things? Monsters? Where did they come from?" Will cast a glance at the faint sheen of gold on the ground at Nico's feet. "Why did they want to attack you? To attack me? What were they doing here?"

Nico took another step backwards. His eyes had widened but Will didn't think it was in anger. If anything, he thought he looked scared, which was a strange impression to get from one who appeared so utterly capable and intimidating. "Don't ask things like that. You're not supposed to know."

"Know what?" Will demanded. He heard his voice louden in his desperation. God, but he just wanted to know. "What did those empoosa things mean when they talked about demigods? They were talking about you, weren't they? And why did they call me a son of Apollo? What does that mean, Nico?"

"I'm not going to tell you," Nico burst out. His hands had clenched to fists at his side as Will had seen him but days before, eyes widened in what was definitely fear this time. Fear of Will, or his questions? Will didn't know. "You're not supposed to know, Will. You can't –"

"Why can't I know?" Will asked, stepping towards Nico so fast that Nico nearly tripped backwards in his hasty retreat. "Why not? If it's about me then why can't I –?"

"Because it will ruin _everything_."

"Ruin what?!"

"You don't understand, but I've – we've tried so hard to make sure you stay out of it, don't ruin everything that we've tried so hard for, Will." Nico was nearly shouting but he sounded more pleading than angry. Angry too, but that anger was nearly drowned out by his own desperation. "Please."

It was that word. That one word, the plea that was just a little choked, and Will found himself rendered speechless. He stared at where Nico stood a full ten feet from him and found his tongue suddenly stilled. It wasn't just for the words either; Will had seen Nico frowning, seen him angry and focused the few times he'd seen him at all, but the expression he wore in that moment was entirely different. Pleading didn't seem encompassing enough. He was as desperate to avoid Will's questions as Will was to pose them.

And he looked like he was about to cry. There wasn't evidence of tears and Will wasn't sure what it was about his expression that made it seem so, but that was what he saw. Nico stared at him with eyes blown wide and dark, imploring, and fists trembling at his sides as though he was struggling to hold them back from throwing a punch. He held his jaw tightly, and in the evening light gradually creeping towards night he looked washed out and even more pale than he had in the hospital.

Or maybe that was the crying thing. Maybe he really was as upset as Will somehow perceived.

Will wanted to ask. He wanted to ask so many questions, to learn about what the hell was going on, what his mom was keeping from him, who Nico was and who he was to Will. But more than that, almost more importantly, he wanted to know why. Why he was so sad, and what about Will learning of this past he'd seemingly forgotten was so distressing to him.

He wasn't sure if he should ask. He wasn't sure if he should say anything. For whatever reason, the urge to let sleeping dogs lie, to not poke him further, settled upon him. Will didn't want to make Nico upset. He didn't know why he didn't, why he cared about someone who was little more than a stranger to him, but he knew that much.

Fingers curling around the strap of his laptop bag, Will swallowed. Then he spoke.

* * *

"I know you. I don't know how, and I don't know from when, but I do."

Will spoke with a suddenly quite tone that took Nico entirely by surprise. He was having difficulty thinking straight, just as he had each time he'd directly encountered Will in the past weeks. It hurt to talk to him, to be around him, to know that he didn't remember Nico even after how much they'd been through together, after how much they'd shared. He couldn't think straight and words just tumbled out.

Not Will's, however. He spoke at a slow, measured pace, as though considering each word before uttering. The way he stared at Nico, thoughtfully and pleadingly, even tenderly… it was all Nico could do not to turn tail and run. Will shouldn't look at him like that. He didn't know Nico and as a stranger he didn't have the right.

"You said that I did this to myself. That I made myself forget. Why would I do that? Why would I possibly want to forget something? Anything? Any _one_?"

 _You didn't,_ Nico didn't say. He couldn't even if he'd wanted to. _You didn't want to. And in a lot of ways that makes it so much worse_.

"I know it's important. This might sound stupid, but I can feel it. Every day that I think about it more and more, I know that what I'm missing is… it's something big."

Nico bit back a choke. He never let himself become emotional but when it came to Will he couldn't seem to help himself. Not these days, anyway. He didn't have the time for it, and it didn't change anything. But Will had always been a bit of an exception to the rule.

 _I can feel it_. Nico didn't want to hope, because he knew it was impossible. There was no way Will could remember. The oath he'd taken, the exchange he'd made, didn't allow for that. _Something big…_ Even if it was as big to Will as it was to Nico, he wouldn't remember.

"I realise that, for whatever reason, what I'm asking is huge. That for some reason it's hurting you –" How did he know? How did Will always know? "- but I have to ask. Please, Nico, you're the only one who can tell me."

Will's gaze was imploring. His expression was soft in its pleading, gentle, as Nico recalled it from when he was treating a distressed patient. How little had changed and yet how very much was different. He was a bit of a mess, having been cast to the ground by Nico himself. His hair was tousled to the point of dishevelled, his jacket askew and the laces from one of his converses loosened. Even so, the only thing that indicated that he might be struggling to maintain his calm was the grasp on the strap of his laptop bag.

His words were so unerringly gentle that Nico almost caved. How good it would be to tell him, to force him to remember even it was only an echo of the picture that Nico would be painting for him. How much he missed his best friend, even after a whole two years. The years they'd shared before that far made up for their time apart. Nico missed him sorely.

He wanted to tell him so much…

That longing was what urged Nico to turn. He wanted to tell Will, wanted to dearly, but he wouldn't let himself. Not for this. Will's ignorance, his isolation from the world Nico and the rest of his friends were eternally stuck in, would be his saviour. Nico wouldn't take that away from him. He couldn't be that selfish, and his resistance had maintained for two years already. He could plough on longer. Eternally if he had to. Will had a life, he had a future, he had –

"I'm sorry, Will," he said quietly, and hoped Will couldn't hear the hoarseness of his words. "I can't do that." Then he drew his shadows around him.

Will moved so fast that Nico didn't have the chance to dodge him. It just went to prove that, even years out of practice, he still had the instincts of a demigod. Before Nico had even half sunk into his shadows, Will was flinging himself towards him. The feeling of his arms wrapping around Nico's waist in a death grip was the last thing he felt of the street side before –

Dry cold wrapped him in a chilling blanket.

Caressing fingers dragged across his skin, the darkness inviting and coaxing.

Nico heard the whispers of his passing, the murmurs and sighs that breathed unintelligible questions into his ears. And throughout it all, the split second passing from shadow to shadow, he felt the unwavering and desperate grasp of unyielding arms clinging to him.

They tumbled from the shadows onto the floor of Hades' cabin in a heap, Nico immediately crushed by Will's wait as the unexpectedness of his grasping lunge threw them off balance. Nico's head smacked the polished blackwood floors and set his ears to ringing.

He was flinging himself from Will in a mad scramble the instant he hit the floor. Heaving himself away from him, he practically rolled halfway across the room until he nearly collided with one of the wide, four-poster beds draped in gossamer red and black curtains. Spinning wildly, heart pounding in his chest to the rapid beat of _oh fuck!_ Nico dragged his gaze back to Will.

Will was sprawled in the middle of the cabin, out of breath and ashen. His laptop bag was flung to the side, but he hardly seemed to notice. His hands seemed to be attempting to grasp for purchase on the floor, as though to assure himself that it really existed, that solid ground was beneath him.

In a mad scramble, Will righted himself on hands and knees. Wide-eyes raked about him, taking in every aspect of the cabin from its high beds to the lounge suite at the entrance end near the intimidating double doors. The speed of his turning nearly rocked himself back onto the floor. He was breathing heavily and Nico couldn't help but pray that he _please, don't freak out_.

Unlikely. What kind of sane person who didn't understand real Greek culture wouldn't be freaking out right now?

Finally, Will's attention managed to settle upon Nico. He looked like he was going to be sick, though Nico wasn't quite sure if it was for the shadow travelling – apparently a disconcerting experience for those undertaking it for the first time – or the unfamiliarity of his surrounding. When he managed to choke out words, they were feeble and mangled. "What they fuck just happened? Where the hell are we?"

Nico could only shrink further into the less-than-comforting support of the bed at his back. Fuck. Fucking fuck. He'd tried so hard to avoid this, to keep Will out of this, and now…

Closing his eyes, Nico bit back his own upwelling of nausea. He could challenge monsters, battle giants and had faced the Gods themselves, but this? Nico couldn't prepare for this. He didn't know what to do at all.


	5. Chapter 5 - Uncovering Truths

**Chapter 5: Uncovering Truths**

It was impossible. Even knowing that Nico had disappeared into shadows before, Will knew it was impossible.

The closest thing he could liken it to was teleportation, but what he'd just experienced was very different. The bone-aching chill that pervaded him, the utter darkness, the breathlessness and then the flinging sensation as he was all but launched from those very shadows and into…

It was some sort of house. A hotel room, maybe, though it was huge. Huge and dark and just a little ominous, if in a refined fashion. Will dragged his gaze around himself, wide-eyed and staring as he took in every aspect that presented itself. A clutch of four-poster beds draped in dark covers and plump pillows. A sitting area with a wide television and more gaming consoles than Will could count. Dark walls that were such a deep grey as to be nearly black and floors just as dark.

It was a large room, ceilings high in a steeple, the distant doors at one end thick and carved with abstract, shadowy shapes. And it was pristinely untouched. Will wasn't an expert on such things, but it had that newness about it, as though it had been recently redecorated and the room itself was just settling into the novelty of its most recent inhabitants. Or maybe that was simply that it felt unlived in.

Will's heart was pounding viciously somewhere at the base of his throat, nearly choking him. He could hear his harsh breaths, could feel his fingers tremble slightly. Except that when he finally spun to face Nico, that feeling of unbalance, as though the world had been tipped its head, ceased. Nico had done this. Nico had – Nico would be able to explain what had happened.

"What they fuck just happened?" Will found himself blurting out. "Where the hell are we?"

The words came from nowhere, sounded nothing if not mangled by confusion and very real distress. Will was suddenly terrified by what he'd gotten himself into, where he was, why in God's name he'd thought it a good idea to pursue something that most of the world deemed fantastical.

Except that as Will stared at Nico, his overwhelming and nearly debilitating fear seemed to short-circuit. It couldn't be helped for when he saw Nico his own fears seemed to take a back seat. His mom would say it was that maternal instinct that they both shared, and maybe it was. That was certainly what it felt like.

Nico was curled at the leg of one of the long beds, hunched upon himself as though longing to sink into the shadows once more. His legs were twisted and half bent before him at an awkwardly sprawling angle as though he simply hadn't the thought to consider correcting himself. More than that, though, Will thought he looked about ready to vomit. His face was even paler than usual, and a moment after meeting Will's eyes closed his own as though attempting to blot out the world around him.

If Will was panicked, Nico was just as much. That much he could easily discern. He looked suddenly ridiculously young, hunched with shoulders tight and practically trembling beneath whatever distress was afflicting him. Impossibly young and terribly vulnerable in a way that so starkly juxtaposed his brief bouts of ferocity when fighting that he seemed two entirely different people. His hands curled onto the thighs of his jeans and seemed to clutch at the denim like a lifeline.

Before he could help himself, Will was crawling across the inky-black wooden floors to his side. Never mind his own concerns; Will's mom had always told him it was often easier to get a handle on his own distress when trying to simultaneously support others. Except, well… Naomi had always told Will to put himself first, too, so maybe that was a bit of a double standard, but in this case at least it seemed to work for Will's benefit.

He had questions. So many questions and was still struggling beneath a cold terror that suffused him. And yet Will didn't ask. Instead, he settled himself at Nico's side, leaning into him slightly and peering at his face as he seemed to struggle to get a hold of whatever had shaken him so badly.

Whatever had shaken him? Will snorted to himself. If anyone wasn't shaken by the shadowy teleportation that had just happened they were a far better man than he.

"Hey, are you alright?" Will asked quietly, gently, keeping his voice low and soothing. There was a voice he found himself always adopting when talking to hysterical patients that –

"I'm not freaking out, Will. You don't need to talk to me like that."

Nico didn't open his eyes. He barely opened his mouth to utter the words. Will blinked at him, surprised for a moment. There was a very knowing touch to his wavering words, as though he was familiar with Will enough to recognise when he spoke 'like that'. _He really does know me_ , Will thought. The urge to question arose once more but he forcibly thrust it aside.

It was a struggle and for a long moment they simply sat alongside one another. It was very dark in the overly large room, very empty and seemed to thrum with the silence. A distant, ruddy glow was the only illumination from the lounge-suite end of the room, bright enough to see by but not starkly so. Will shifted in place, discomforted. He was never much good at waiting endlessly.

Finally, Nico spoke. "I… I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened."

When Will drew his gaze from a wall sconce that looked like a skull, it was to see Nico staring at his with large dark eyes. His expression was so solemn it was almost disconcerting. "What do you mean?"

"I shouldn't have brought you here."

Resisting the urge to rebuke Nico for his words – really, Will insisted he come along in the basest manner – Will swallowed his statement and replaced it with another. "Where is here, exactly?"

Nico sighed, closing his eyes again briefly before staring down at his knees. His hand curled so tightly onto his jeans that his knuckles turned as white as the bones that protruded sharply from them. "This is… where I live. Where a whole group of the people like me live. Or at least… at least they do until they leave."

 _Until they leave._ It sounded ominous, and Will didn't really want to think about it. Leave by choice or by circumstance? And what kind of leaving? The way Nico said made it sound as though they were leaving permanently, though for a sea change or of the ultimate kind was uncertain.

But the 'people like him'? What did Nico mean by that? What was 'him'? Was he -? Even as Will thought it, a switch flicked. Limmi and Mago had said it. Demigods. Son of Apollo. Was that – was it a cult or something? But no, because they were very definitely monsters and that meant…

Will shook his head in an attempt to clear it of his confusion. His mind was a strange mess of disbelief and comprehension, a discomforting hodge-podge of what he knew was impossible and what suddenly felt right on a purely emotional level. He felt the warmth of satisfaction settle in his chest, similar if not exactly the same to how he felt when he thought of Nico. A warmth that flooded through him and set him at ease. Even as Will spared a glance around the dark room he was in, a strange quirk reminiscent of the vague familiarity he'd felt increasingly over the past month settled upon him. Had he been here before?

"By people like you, you mean demigods, right?"

Nico twitched slightly, peering at Will sidelong. "Where did you hear that?"

"The empoosi –"

"Empousai."

"Yeah, them," Will nodded. "They said that you were a demigod. That I was a son of Apollo." He stared at Nico intently, just a little disbelieving but gradually coming to the realisation that such words weren't quite so far-fetched as they sounded. Impossible, but then… "Am I?"

Nico swallowed and refused to reply.

"Am I a demigod, Nico? Is that what you are? Is that what other people like you are?"

Nico still didn't say anything. Or at least not immediately. He was staring at Will silently, unblinkingly, in such a way that Will was abruptly reminded of Hazel and how she'd looked just the same sitting in the ER at the hospital and facing his questions. _Not so different after all_ , he thought. _Maybe they really are siblings._

"You're not one of us," Nico said abruptly, before in a scramble that was somehow fluid and almost elegant he rose to his feet. "You're not."

"Anymore?" Will couldn't help but ask. "Is that what this is? Is this what I've forgotten?"

Nico's jaw visibly clenched before he stuck a hand out towards Will. "That's enough. Stop asking questions. Come on, I'm taking you back home."

Will was on his own feet in an instant and throwing himself away from Nico. He was taller than him but as Nico spun after him, frown abruptly returning, he was very much intimidated. _Fuck, but he can look threatening._ It was even more intimidating after what Will had just seen of him and though he wasn't exactly scared he was far from comfortable with the sight of it.

"No," Will said, walking backwards away from Nico towards the door of the room. "No, I've got questions and I want them answered."

"Not going to happen," Nico replied shortly.

"Why are you being so adamant about this?"

"Why are you?"

"Because! There's something that you're keeping from me and I want to know!"

"Something you've _forgotten_ and is dangerous for you to know," Nico countered.

"So why don't you tell me?!" Will nearly stumbled over his feet as he backed away, frustration making him inattentive of his own steps. "Why can't you just -?"

Nico paused in place and stamped a foot. Literally stamped, like a child throwing a tantrum, except that when he did it Will half expected the floor to cave beneath his heel in submission. "Because, _Will_ , if you do then you can never have the life you want. You're going to be a doctor, right? Help people? Save lives? What, work in your mom's hospital, grow up and get married and have two-point-five kids and live in a run down flat before being able to afford a real house and moving to the suburbs where you can have picnics on weekends and send your kids to a good school and –"

Nico cut himself off as his tirade became almost a shout. To Will's ears, it was nearly hysterical, the same pleading desperation that he'd expressed before. Will stared at him, momentarily speechless and similarly paused in step. "What… what are you talking about?"

"You can't have that, Will," Nico said, and he sounded just a little choked. He was still frowning, but his tone seemed to deny the ferocity of his glare. "Don't ask those questions or you can't have that."

"What are you -?"

"Come on, we're going." Once more Nico reached out towards him and started across the room.

Will, more instinctively than by intention, flung himself backwards towards the door once more. An instant later and he was doing so intentionally. What Nico was saying – Will didn't understand it, but it sounded ridiculous. At that moment he desperately wanted answers to the questions that had been plaguing him for what felt like forever. Shaking his head, Will backed into the door. "No. No, I'm not leaving. Not until I get some sort of answers." Then he pushed the door open.

"Don't!" Nico cried, leaping after him, but Will was already tumbling through. Through and across a veranda, and nearly rolling head over heels down a set of steps as black as the timber inside the room. When Will lifted his gaze to his surroundings, he paused, frozen.

He wasn't in New York anymore. Far from it, it would seem, and Will felt his eyes widen as he stared about himself. He was on a village green of sorts, the grass thick and luscious despite the encroaching winter. A ring of what looked like cabins, artfully and differentially decorated in a circuit around the green, faced towards him, windows peering like eyes to a live hearth in the very centre. Amidst the cabins, wandering or sitting or chatting idly, little clusters of kids, mostly teenagers or younger, turned their curious attention his way.

Will barely saw them. Staggering forwards a few steps, his attention was snagged, drawn beyond the cabins. Turning in a slow circle, Will drew his gaze around himself. Across the green, behind a line of cabins, was a towering structure of pillars and marble, something that looked like a piece of architecture taken straight from Ancient Greece. A little further away and in the opposite direction was another structure that Will could have sworn was a Colosseum down to the sand that spread across the sunken stage, visible for the open roof of the construct and the decline of the hill. Beyond that – God, those kids were fighting. With swords. With helmets on, and leather armour that made them look like characters from a LARP re-enactment. An archery range a little further along beside another building, then further a structure surrounded by fences and paddocks housing… _impossible,_ but some of those horses definitely had wings.

Will stared, turned, and stared some more. He felt his eyes grow wider and wider the longer he took, incredulity and wonder overwhelming him and yet something else. It was foreign, the likes of which Will had never seen before, and yet it felt… it felt…

That familiarity, the wash of distant nostalgia that Will attributed to being part of what he'd forgotten, rose within him. He was rapidly, very rapidly, coming to the realisation that whatever that something was, it was very big. Very big and very sorely lost from his memories.

The scattering of curious eyes caught his attention as first one then another of the kids jumped to their feet. Some stared with mouths open, eyes widening, others pointed or smacked at their friends to grab their attention. Others spoke so loudly, in such open wonder, that even from all the way across the green those at the furthest cabin could be heard.

"Oh Gods, is that him?"

"Holy – is that Will? Will Solace?"

"It is?"

"Who?"

"Oh, for the love of – you've heard about Will, surely."

"What's he doing here?"

"Isn't he supposed to -?"

"Didn't he -?"

"Why -?"

Questions flung, exclamations ringing, Will followed the sound of each to their source and made eye contact with each kid. One that looked about fourteen, mouth hanging wide and arm raised to point a limp hand towards him. Another, younger, his dark eyes flaring and a little awed that they seemed to take up most of his face. Older and young, all rapidly turned their attention upon him and seemed speechless for what they saw.

They knew him. These kids that Will wouldn't have been able to put a name to if he'd tried, they knew him. These – these _demigods_ , and what the fuck that meant Will wasn't quite sure but he was rapidly coming to the realisation that it was entirely true. Demigods. The Grecian architecture. Son of Apollo. He didn't need to spare a glance for what looked like an amphitheatre across a distance and a lake to emphasise the common theme.

He was… with the monsters, the fighting, all of it, Will was living in a veritable Greek myth. Except that it was entirely real.

Slowly turning, Will finally drew his gaze back towards Nico. Nico hadn't descended the steps from what Will now saw as being a cabin cast all in black, sombre and shadowy compared to its fellows. He stood on the veranda, head bowed, hands hanging limply at his sides. He seemed to have deflated, as if exhausted. Or resigned. He was no longer charging after Will with the apparent intention of sweeping him away from wherever they were.

"This," Will began, found himself cut off as his voice came out in nothing but a hoarse whisper and tried again. "What is this place?"

Nico only shook his head and didn't even attempt to lift his gaze. "You should never have come back here."

"Come back?"

"You're not an idiot, Will," Nico said, entirely disregarding his earlier insult to just that fact. "I know you're not. You'd have worked it out already."

Will nodded slowly, disbelievingly and yet somehow understanding. "I'm a… a demigod. A son of Apollo."

"Never knew you're dad, right? Or at least not that you can remember."

"I've met him?"

"Yeah. He's an arsehole."

Even Nico's insult sounded exhausted, wearied as if by the weight of the world. Will bit back on his desire to question further on the subject of his elusive father for the more important questions. "Why aren't I allowed here anymore?"

Finally, Nico raised his gaze to stare at him. He appeared nothing if not mournful, a little haunted even, and Will felt the immediate urge to go to him. To comfort him. To – he didn't know what, but to try to make him feel better. "It's not that you're not allowed, Will," Nico said finally. "It's just that this is a place for people who have nowhere else safe to go. And you don't need to be here anymore. You don't need this life"

Will turned slowly towards the kids gathering around the green. _Nowhere else safe…_ What was Nico talking about? About the monsters? The empousa's words returned to mind as Will was struck by the thought. The monsters chased the demigods. They attacked them. Were they endangered by the very fact that, what, they were demigods? It seemed so unfair. And why, if Will was one too, wasn't he threatened just the same?

Turning back towards Nico, Will swallowed tightly. "I have questions. Will you please let me ask them?"

Nico stared at him for a long moment. A long, long moment, after which whatever reistance that endured within him seemed to fade utterly and leave him resigned and exhausted. He dropped his chin once more and lowered his gaze alongside it. "I," he began, seemed to choke for a moment and struggled to continue. " I don't know how well I'll be able to answer them. I don't know if I –"

He cut himself off, but Will thought he heard the unspoken words anyway. _I don't know if I can._ It wasn't perfect, but in that moment, Will would take what he could get. Nodding, he took a step back towards Nico and the black cabin. "Alright. That's alright. Just what you can."

"Then we're going back," Nico said to the veranda at his feet. "We're not talking here. You're not staying here. You need to go home."

Will wanted to protest. He wanted to stay at this camp or whatever it was, to discover what exactly it was, to learn about this part of his life that had somehow been erased from his memory. He wanted to explore it and meet the people who clearly knew him but he just couldn't remember. It stung to think of leaving it as soon as he'd arrived.

But Nico was offering to answer his questions, and for some reason Will very much wanted to talk to him. Not only about this camp, about the reality of being a demigod, but to simply talk. He wanted – Will didn't know, he wanted to know who Nico was. For whatever reason, that seemed to be a priority.

Finally, he nodded. "Alright, then. You answer some of my questions – and you have to answer some – and I'll come with you."

"Alright," Nico agreed, and almost despairingly held out a hand to Will. "Come on then."

Will hesitated before stepping forwards to take it. "You're not going to take my memories away are you? You promise?"

Very real pain drew across Nico's face as he shook his head. "No, Will, I'm not. I couldn't even if I wanted to."

Will wished he could retract his words. For some reason, that recurring illogical reason, it hurt him to see that he'd hurt Nico with his cautionary words. He didn't know why, hardly knew the other man, but it hurt. He nodded and, in a show of confidence, reached out and took Nico's hand. "Alright, then. Let's… alright."

He only regretted his haste as he was sucked back into shadows, and then only briefly.

* * *

Nico climbed the stairs up to Will's flat, following in his footsteps. He'd climbed these steps before, though not often. Not often in years, and only recently when Naomi, on her occasional requests to see him, had asked him to. Before that… he used to visit with Will sometimes. Some few times, but enough that it was familiar to him.

Now, each step was as difficult as though a leaden weight was plastered to the soles of each of his shoes. What a mess he'd gotten himself into, just because he'd made the foolish mistake of letting Will get close enough to hitch a ride when he shadow travelled. Stupid. _Stupid_. Nico had been kicking himself incessantly since the moment they'd crashed onto the floor of Hades' cabin.

And now he had to answer questions. Brilliant.

There was no avoiding it, though. Nico had tried hard, so desperately hard, to keep Will out of the world of monsters and Greek Gods. Roman too for that matter, or any other kind that, according to Annabeth, very much existed. He'd tried for two whole years, and yet in the end his efforts had fallen through. Now Will had seen and there was no getting around telling him because Will was nothing if not persistent when he was desperate. He would just find his answers some other way if not, and Nico didn't want him doing anything stupid for it. Or more stupid. Nico didn't want to tell him, for him to know, to the point of desperation, but… but the weight of resignation rapidly pressed upon him. He knew. He knew that, for all his own wants and wishes, he couldn't get around this one.

 _"You're not going to take my memories away are you?"_

That had stung. The way Will said it, as though he'd honestly believed it – it had hurt. Still hurt. Nico might know it was irrational to be so upset, that Will didn't know he would never do that, but it still cut deeply. Will didn't know what it had been like when he'd forgotten. He clearly didn't recall how it had been in those first moments he'd woken up and hadn't recognised Nico as he bent over him, madly shaking him to wake him up. Nico had relived those moments more times that he could count.

The idiot. The fucking idiot. Why had he done that? Nico didn't think he would ever forgive him for what he did.

Will let them into the flat with a jingle of keys, flicking the lights on as he went. It was a humble place, clean and minimalistic but with a homeliness to it that Nico had always liked. The round table just a little pockmarked because neither Will nor Naomi used coasters or place mats. The television that had been out of date even after they'd replaced it but was hardly used anyway. The comfortable couch, plush and that now looked to be boasting a rather extensive stain always with a pillow or two perched atop it. Nico wondered idly where that had come from.

"Can I get you a drink or anything?" Will asked as he unslung his laptop bag from his shoulder and dropped it on the table. It was the only one of his school supplies that appeared to have made it through the attack and subsequent shadow travel.

Barely stepping away from the door, Nico leaned against the wall. He pretended it wasn't defensive but didn't fool himself for a second. "You don't have to treat me like a guest, you know."

"But you are a guest," Will pointed out.

"No I'm not."

"You sort of are."

"I'm not."

"Fine." Will raised his hands in supplication. "You're not a guest. Have it your way. Water? Something else?"

Nico couldn't help but snort, shaking his head. "I'm fine," he said. He'd likely throw up if he tried to consume anything, even water.

"Alright, then." Slowly, almost hesitantly, Will took himself to the dining table. He didn't sit in a seat, however, simply leaning against the back of one of the chairs and facing Nico. His arms folded across his chest as he settled himself. Nico thought it an act of self-restraint that Will didn't offer him a seat, but the glance he spared the sofa suggested it at least played on his mind.

 _Some things never change_. Nico thought. Even after years, in many ways Will was still exactly the same.

"So," Will said finally. He sounded nothing if not awkward, though there was a definite touch of eagerness to his words as he continued. "Can you tell me about it?"

Nico didn't want to. He really didn't want to. He'd pitted everything towards trying to give Will a normal life, a life that no demigod would ever get the chance to experience. After what Will went through, even if it was in a sense his own doing, he shouldn't have to endure the confusion of what the real world was like for people like them. It wasn't fair.

And yet Will had found out anyway. He couldn't remember, but he'd found out nonetheless. If only in part, Nico knew he had to tell him. Will really would search for answers elsewhere if he didn't. He was persistent like that, and incredibly stubborn.

"About what part in particular?" Nico said with a sigh.

"Everything," Will said. And apparently he really did mean everything.

So Nico spoke. Reluctantly, hesitantly at first and with a struggle against how wrong it was, but he told him. Nico hadn't spoken so much in what he could swear was his entire life as he did in that next hour. He told Will about Camp Half-Blood, about what it was, the reality of demigods, the Gods themselves and the reality of their parentage. About the monsters and their targeting of demigods, of how those demigods were drawn to Camp by their satyr guides if they managed to elude the monster attacks long enough to do so. Will wore disbelief like a comfortable gown for at least the first ten minutes, and then he seemed to simply accept it. Almost as though he'd known it to be true.

"You can talk to the gods?"

"When they feel inclined to reply, yeah."

"I mean, actual gods?"

"Yeah."

"And they're really –"

"They're really gods, yes."

"And my dad's –"

"Apollo. God of Music."

"Music?" Will shook his head. "Apparently I didn't inherit that trait."

"And the sun," Nico continued. "And light. And archery. And prophecy, and healing –"

"Healing?"

That had opened up a whole new can of worms, and Will had been like a child in a candy shop. Apparently he hadn't realised he could even heal with his godly gifts. That thought saddened Nico more than he'd thought it ever would. Will had always taken such pride in his healing abilities.

They spoke of the quests, too. Of some of the quests that Nico had been on in the past, those of his friends, of the Oracle of Delphi that still used Rachel Dare as a mouthpiece.

"I can't believe it," Will murmured, more to himself than to Nico as he took a pause. Despite his words, Nico was given the impression that he very much did believe it. "You've fought monsters and lived legends –"

"Not so much legends," Nico said. He was exhausted more than just physically, didn't want to speak anymore, but he'd promised. And though it was hard, Will hadn't asked the hardest questions yet. Nico knew they were still to come. He couldn't help but wonder how he was going to get out of answering them.

"And I went on them too?"

And there it was. They'd reached the cusp of those very questions. Nico nodded jerkily, dropping his gaze to his toes where they'd rested for the majority of the explanation. "Yeah, you went on them."

Will exhaled heavily. "I can't believe… there's so much I've forgotten. So much I've –" He paused and though Nico didn't look towards him he could feel his gaze settle sharply upon him. "Nico. How long was I at Camp Half-Blood."

Nico closed his eyes briefly. This was the beginning of what he could feel to be a long list of hard questions. "A while."

"How long?" A demand this time, not quite a question.

"About… it was about eight years."

Will didn't reply. He was silent for so long that Nico, in a struggle against the weight that was threatening to cave him to the floor, lifted his gaze towards him.

Will was staring at him but he didn't appear to see him. His face had grown ashen and seemed to be paling further, and his mouth hanging open in an expression of horror. He slumped back heavily upon the chair and it almost seemed as though he would sag to the ground. For a moment Nico struggled with the urge to cross the room, to slap his face gently before pulling him into a hug. They'd never been demonstrative in such an intimate fashion; offhanded arms around shoulders, casual hugs, rarely more than a kiss to the cheek in public. And yet Nico was struck by the fierce urge to pull Will against him and hold him, to never let him go and to chase his terrifying thoughts away. It was a seemingly impossible fight to suppress that desire and keep his feet still.

 _Will doesn't know me. He wouldn't understand if I did something like that._

"Eight years," Will finally choked out. He blinked and slowly his gaze focused on Nico. "That's… eight years? How can I not remember eight years?"

And there it was. What Nico had been waiting for. What he'd known was going to be asked. "You lost your memories," he said weakly.

"How?" Will said. His voice was abruptly loud, demanding and more than a little desperate. "How does that even happen? Did someone – something – take them? Can I get them back?"

Nico was shaking his head before Will had finished speaking. "No. No, you can't get them back. It doesn't work like that." Nico knew. Gods, but he knew Will couldn't get them back. Something inside him had died a long time ago when he'd realised that.

Will uttered a slight mew before speaking. His voice was audibly strangled. "What happened?"

What happened? Two words, so simple, and yet within them Nico felt himself die just a little further. Gods but he hated remembering it. Even worse was reciting what had happened. The best he could do, the only way he could struggle through it, was to shut down. Squeezing his eyes closed, his strove to impress emotionlessness into his tone. "We were on a quest. Nothing huge; it was barely a handful of us, and we were all pretty experienced so we didn't expect to get into any trouble.

"Except that we did. We did, and it was bad. Not impossible, I don't think, but…" Nico could still remember it, the crushing weight of entrapment as they'd fallen prey to an ambush that had thrown them into suffocating darkness. He always remembered those moments – hours, days, however long it had been – before he recalled everything else. "You were the only one who didn't get stuck."

"A quest?" Will whispered, though he sounded like he spoke more as simply something to say than in an actual question.

Nico nodded, struggling to open his eyes even as he kept them downcast. They were blurry again but he didn't spare the fact a second thought. "Yeah. And you, being the stupidly self-sacrificing martyr that you are, gave up your memories to save us."

Will didn't speak for a long moment. Nico was glad for that; even a second or two provided to attempt to regain his composure was a blessing. He was abruptly glad for the wall behind him propping him up, for the distance between himself and Will. He didn't want Will to see the trembling of his hands where they curled at his sides.

"How?" Was all Will asked.

Nico closed his eyes once more. In his mind, he could still see it. He relived the memory of Will lying limp and pale on the ground, eyes closed and for all appearances dead as Nico sprinted towards him. He remembered the titan standing above him in all of her auburn-haired and beautiful glory, her expression curious yet benevolent as she gazed upon Will before drawing her attention towards them.

He remembered her words as though they were spoken into his ear that very moment. _"The most important. I took those of the most importance as repayment for my aid. They shine so beautifully, don't they?"_

"Here name was Mnemosyne," Nico finally managed. "She's not – she's not really a goddess but more of a representation. Of memory, that is." He shook his head, struggling to vanquish the vague yet beatific image of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and remembrance, smiling at him. She was entirely ignorant of the distress he and his friends cried, watching them as though they were nothing but a source of mild entertainment as she crooned over the newest addition to her collection. "I don't even know how you found her, or how she found you. But she offered you help in exchange." Nico scoffed but to his ears it came out sounding more of a sob. "The most stupid part was that it wasn't even needed. We could have gotten out of there. We should have been able to. But you…"

Nico knew how it was. He knew what it was like to see his friends in peril and to be prepared to throw everything away to save them. Will had been desperate. Nico regretted every moment that he hadn't tried harder to escape, hadn't fought the bindings that somehow managed to smother even his shadow travel. It had been frighteningly similar to when he'd been trapped in Tartarus, and yet in some ways was even worse for this time the nightmare continued even when he'd been freed.

"You've always been like that," Nico muttered, more to himself than to Will. He had to blink to suppress the burning that threatened to spill from his eyes. "Always helping people to your own detriment, but just as often than not you wouldn't openly fight. I… I know you saw what you did as helping us but…"

For that cost, it wasn't worth it. Not to Nico, anyway. He would give anything to get those memories back for Will, but he knew it would be impossible. No one in the thin pages of history he'd been able to find on the subject had ever been able to rescind upon a bargain with Mnemosyne. Nico knew. He'd asked as he'd scouring the legends. He'd even tried looking for her.

Apparently Mnemosyne didn't want to be found. She guarded her pilfered memories like a dragon hoarded its gold. So Nico didn't fix Will's memories. He'd settled for the next best thing.

What did it say of his life that second best hadn't worked either?

Will was silent for so long that Nico almost forgot he was there. Almost, but not quite, because he would never be able to overlook Will. When he did speak, it wasn't as Nico had anticipated. "What were we to one another?"

Finally Nico lifted his gaze. He stared at Will and for a long moment couldn't bring himself to reply. _Everything you don't remember hurts so much_. Will appeared just as stunned, just as horrified, as he had before, and that made it even harder to reply. Fighting the hoarseness that threatened to mute him, Nico swallowed. "We were friends."

"Friends?"

"Good friends. For years."

Will stared right back at Nico, mouth still hanging open and eyes still wide. He was visibly unhinged, for which Nico couldn't blame him, and maybe that was what contributed to his apparent incomprehension of Nico's words. Maybe he didn't believe them at all; Nico wouldn't blame him given that he'd been disregarding if not openly antagonistic whenever they'd seen each other before. That was hardly what friends did with one another.

Except that after a moment Will nodded slowly as though accepting it. He swallowed tightly. "That's… I guess that makes sense."

"What does?"

"Why you helped me. The first time I saw you – or saw you again. With the gryphon."

Nico nodded shortly. Yes, it did make sense in a way. Even more if Will knew the whole of it. But Nico wouldn't – he couldn't tell him. He couldn't.

Will didn't seem to be able to get a hold on reality. He was visibly wavering on his feet, and Nico had never regretted being forced into something more in his life. He hadn't wanted this. He hadn't wanted to do this to Will. It hurt in so many ways that Nico wasn't even sure where the source of that hurt came from. He wanted to comfort Will, to apologise for what he'd forced him into for his own good – for it was his own good, no matter how Will saw it.

At the same time, however, Nico wanted to be anywhere but here. He was nearly crumpling himself beneath the weight of those memories, of what had happened after. Gods, _after_. When Will had looked at him with such confusion, even wariness as Nico leaned over him frantically, clutching him and desperately pleading that he wake up. When he'd stared blankly at the rest of their friends and asked where the hell he was. When he'd shown nothing if not utter ignorance for their word, for his past, for all of it.

Will hadn't been reduced to a child. He hadn't lost every single memory that he'd made, every skill he'd learned, every moment he'd lived. It was just them. Just the camp. Just his friends and his memories of the fighting, of the gods and the quests and the jubilation afterwards as they'd cheered their triumph for a job well done.

Just Nico.

He'd forgotten Nico and everything between them. Nico had never been able to quite get over that. He doubted he ever would. Will was… Will had been the most important person in his world. Still was. And yet Will didn't even know him.

Will was in pain. Nico could see it in his face, in the way he stared without seeing, as his mouth struggled to form words but released nothing but a thin moan that stuttered into silence a moment into utterance. Nico knew he was hurting, but he couldn't do anything about it. To properly comfort Will would be to toe the line of unforgivable and tumble across it into a land he could never recover from. Nico knew this. He knew it to his core. He couldn't – he didn't think he could –

The sound of footsteps, soft and scuffling, was barely audible through the door at Nico's side. A second later, keys scratched in the lock and the door was swinging open. Naomi stepped through the doorway, only to stutter to a halt as she saw first Nico and then drew her gaze towards Will. Her eyes widened, abruptly concerned. "What happened? What -?"

"He needs you," Nico said. To his own ears his tone was utterly emotionless. That at least was a blessing. "He doesn't remember but he knows it all." Then, without sparing a glance towards Will, he started to the door and slipped past Naomi. "Help him."

Nico left and he didn't look back. He couldn't.


	6. Chapter 6 - Brooding Thoughts

**Chapter 6: Brooding Thoughts**

Will didn't leave the flat that Sunday. He barely managed to sit up in the couch such was the depths of his brooding thoughtfulness.

He didn't leave on Monday either, despite having classes and a study load that he knew he was already falling behind with. He received exactly twelve calls and twice as many messages from his friends asking where he was; apparently, though Will hadn't realised it, he was a pinnacle for exemplary attendance. He'd worried them… but even knowing that he didn't call them back.

There was something so debilitating about realising that half of his life was wiped from his memories. Will could barely move from bed the day following the discovery, caught as he was in his thoughts and mulling over everything that he'd lost. He remembered being twelve, of what it had felt like, of visiting his mom in his holidays and… and nothing else. He recalled being fourteen, when he'd first struggled to make his way through Robin Cook's paperbacks, but little more. He remembered learning calculus at sixteen but couldn't for the life of him think _where_ he'd been learnt it from, and he remembered gazing out over a lake that he distinctly recalled as being at Christmas time when he was seventeen yet couldn't place where it had been.

How hadn't Will realised the holes in his memory? He had a _good_ memory, almost to the point of eidetic, or so Cindy was want to claim. He remembered things, and yet… this enormous chunk of his life was simply gone.

Will wanted to remember it. He wanted to remember it badly – growing up at Camp Half-Blood as Nico had said, learning to fight monsters with a sword and a bow, going on quests. Becoming cabin councillor, which was apparently pretty impressive for someone his age when it had happened. He wanted to remember his friends, those he had lived with and fought alongside, the nights at the mess hall and after when they'd sung around the hearth that he had so briefly glimpsed. He wanted to remember what it was like to play in the camp games that Nico had only mentioned briefly and offhandedly and in a far too minimalistic fashion, as though it wasn't of consequence.

It was to Will. He wanted to know. He wanted to know it all. And yet apparently it wasn't possible. Apparently his memories weren't coming back.

It wasn't Nico that told him that but his mom. She sat beside him that first night after Will detachedly registered Nico all but fleeing the room. She drew him to the couch and he couldn't remember the expression on her face but her voice was soothing. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry. We didn't want you to find out."

We. She said we. Naomi had known and she hadn't told him. Will felt a brief flicker of burning rage, of betrayal, but it had barely sprung to life before it dissipated into anguish. He hadn't been told but that almost didn't matter anymore. It wasn't like he remembered what had been kept from him anyway.

Turning tear-filled eyes towards his mom, Will struggled to speak. "You knew."

Naomi nodded. "I knew. Of course I did. You're a demigod, Will, and even given the circumstances and what your friends were trying so hard to give you, there was no overlooking that." Her smile was small and pained. "I had to play my part."

There was so much regret in her words, for the situation or her actions or both, that Will couldn't hold onto even the last flicker of his anger. Crumpling, he leaned into her, dropping his forehead onto her shoulder. "Can I get them back?" He asked, begged, his voice muffled. "Is there any way that I can…?"

Naomi's sigh said it all. Will didn't need to hear her words, because there was explanation in that single, short puff of breath, but she spoke anyway. "I'm sorry, Will. We looked. We tried. I'm sorry." Then she wrapped her arms around him and help him as he lost himself to thoughts of memories forgotten, of what he'd lost but hadn't even known was gone.

Will thought about his mom's words days after on Tuesday morning. He recalled them as though she'd spoken them as she'd walked out the door barely an hour ago, and it wasn't the realisation that he wouldn't be able to get those memories back. It was what she'd said about his friends. About what his friends were trying to do. What was that, exactly? Will remembered what Nico had shouted at him days before, about how he was ruining everything, about how they were trying so hard to ensure he could stay out of it. Why? Why would they do that?

And his friends? Naomi was talking about Nico, wasn't she? Nico and… who? Had Hazel been his friend? Will abruptly wanted to see the young woman he'd met so briefly and obliviously. And on top of that, were there others? Another brief, offhanded comment Nico had given him, that the children of Apollo were all quite literally children of Apollo, regardless of how weirdly that worked. Will had siblings. He had a whole cabin of half-siblings that he couldn't remember ever meeting.

Will desperately wanted to know. He wanted to know them all.

Hours after her work had begun, however, Naomi wasn't there to ask. More than that, Will wasn't sure if she would give him a reply to the questions he desperately wanted to ask. How much did she know? Was she a primary participant in the 'keep Will ignorant' party? Would she be inclined to tell him if she was, even though barely more than a week before she'd been so close-lipped?

Will as still struggling with what he detachedly and ruefully dubbed an emotional crisis, but he couldn't sit still any longer. He'd never been one to sit and wait anyway, and it wasn't only because of his ADHD. His mom said it was the 'doing things' gene, that both of them always felt better being proactive than lying around and brooding.

Proactive. Will could do that.

Throwing on a clean change of clothes and a jacket over it all, Will was striding from the flat with barely a thought as to what he was doing. It was only as he made his way down the stairs, footsteps echoing on the cement, that he made up his mind.

 _Do you mind if I meet you for lunch today?_ He sent as a message to his mom. He knew he didn't need to expand upon it; it might be cruel of him to monopolise her break with pestering for questions, but he needed to know. Naomi had said any time, too. She'd talk to him any time he needed it.

Hopping trains, Will made his way across Manhattan towards Mount Sinai hospital. Naomi had messaged him back by that point with the agreement to meet up at about one o'clock. That was a full three hours away by the time Will climbed off the bus into the crisp morning air, but he didn't mind. He'd rather wait around outside the hospital than spend more time riding about on buses.

Taking up a perch on one of the seats outside the hospital, Will settled himself to scanning his surrounds, watching a waddle of pigeons pass and the clutch of expected smokers off to the opposite side of the entrance to himself routinely change over. He found himself unconsciously jiggling his leg and paused as memory of Hazel rose to his mind. That was about all he had of her. Was there more? Had he had more memories of her once? Of other friends? Suddenly the fact that she'd seemed so wary and yet so casually familiar with the use of his name didn't seem so strange.

An hour passed of Will lost in thought as he'd often found himself of late, of thinking and regretting and cursing the faceless titan who'd taken his memories, despite what she'd apparently given him in return. Were all Greek monsters and gods alike so cruel? Couldn't she have taken something else, something even slightly less valuable? Will spent a good half an hour glaring at the likeness of her on his phone as he scrolled through whatever information he could find of her.

The bitch. God, but he hated her. He didn't even know her but he hated her on principle for what had become of her actions, regardless of the help she'd apparently given him.

His relative quiet and solitude was interrupted rather abruptly, however, by the arrival of a woman with snakes for hair. Will had barely the time to glance up from his phone, register that there was something definitely _not right_ about the woman who loomed over him and that those were certainly not dreadlocks. Only a second, however, before in a burst of dust she lost her head and then disappeared.

Will was left staring at the air where she'd stood, empty but for the gold dust that slowly fell. Or at least it was until the apparent vanquisher swept it aside with a waft of his sword.

Will thought it was Nico. No, he realised as he thought it – he'd hoped it was Nico. He even felt a slight hitch in his heart rate, something aside from the sudden lurch into rapid fire pumping at the appearance then disappearance of the snake-haired woman. One thing had persisted over the past days when Will had the headspace to actually think rather than listlessly stare, and that was that he wanted to see Nico again. To talk to him. To ask questions? Maybe, but more than that just to talk. They'd been friends, hadn't they? That's what Nico had said. That they'd also gone on quests together, apparently spent quite a bit of time together. In the midst of longing for a past he couldn't remember, Will desperately wanted that. He wanted to know the person who'd once been his friend.

It wasn't Nico, though. The young man who stepped forwards had black hair, but he was taller, broader, _different_. The sword he carried wasn't glossy black as Nico's was but a shiny bronze. Will tried not to be too disappointed.

And he suddenly wasn't when the man met his gaze and offered him a warm, crooked and faintly chiding smile. "Hey, Will. What're you doing sitting outside?"

In a delayed reaction, Will realised that he must know this person. Of course he did, for apparently it was a pretty small world for camp demigods and everyone knew everyone. He stared up at the man as he – yes, that was a pen cap that he just touched to the end of the sword and yes, it did appear to have shrunken said sword back into a pen. "Who are you?"

Will realised a second after he'd spoken that his words might come across as harsh. As painful, even, if this person had indeed known him. He'd realised in his brooding that his questions had likely hurt Nico too, and he regretted that. He didn't want to upset anyone unnecessarily. But the man only smiled easily, that crooked smile that made his handsome face only more attractive widening. "Don't look so worried. It's okay, I know you don't remember me. I'm Percy."

Percy held out a hand in greeting and Will took it readily. Anyone who knew him, who knew about the past he couldn't remember – he would take any hand offered from such a person in a heartbeat. "Right. Yeah. Sorry."

"Seriously, don't look so worried. We all know what's happened. Nico told me yesterday that he'd talked to you about… everything. Or, well… Hazel told me after Nico sort of told her."

"You know Hazel?"

Percy grinned crookedly once more, Will acknowledged that he was definitely good looking, even if he only noticed as an aside. "Of course. She's like a little sister to me."

"Like or -?"

"Only like," Percy confirmed. "We're cousins technically."

Will nodded. When he thought about it, the whole godly parent thing made sense. Or at least it made sense after he got over the Greek-Gods-Are-Real reality check. He supposed that he could understand how Nico and Hazel were actual siblings now at least.

"It's good to actually talk to you again, man," Percy was saying. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he paced idly back and forth before Will as though he couldn't stand still. Will wondered if that was a demigod thing, the constant surplus of energy. "A whole different kettle of fish than just seeing you every now and again."

"You've seen me?"

"Well yeah," Pecy said with a shrug. "Nico can't do it all the time."

"Do what?"

Percy paused in step and blinked at Will uncomprehendingly. Then understanding dawned and he winced a little sheepishly. "Oh. I guess Nico didn't tell you that part?"

Will shook his head slowly. There was more? He knew there was because he couldn't have been told all the finer details, but… _more?_ "Didn't tell me what?"

Percy huffed in a long, heavy sigh that puffed his cheeks briefly before beginning his slow pacing once more. "He probably didn't tell you for a reason. Wants to keep it under wraps or something."

"Keep what under wraps?"

Percy glanced at Will sidelong, lips quirking. "You know, I probably shouldn't tell you –"

"Percy," Will began, almost a plea.

" – But," Percy continued, raising a placating hand, "I was always a bit weirded out by Nico keeping stuff from you. I mean, I agreed with what we were trying to do and everything, but it always felt just so wrong." He shook his head a little sadly. "I don't know, Annabeth agreed that it would be better for you but I just… I never figured it would work out. So I'll tell you. You already know pretty much everything anyway, right?"

Will nodded absently, even as his thoughts were caught on Percy's words. The way he spoke, the casual mention of this Annabeth as though Will should know who she was, stung just a little. He bit back the urge to ask who she was, to frown in disgruntlement over the idea that she agreed with Nico for keeping things from him.

Percy heaved another sigh, scratching at the back of his head. When he finally continued it was a little awkwardly. "Did you know – I mean, you probably didn't know that Nico's basically been your bodyguard for two years, right?" Will's wide-eyed surprise was apparently answer enough. "Yeah, I figured. Well, he has."

"My bodyguard?" Will asked incredulously.

Percy nodded. "Makes sense when you think about it. If you're not able to defend yourself then someone else has to do it for you."

"Defend…" Will trailed off as the notion unravelled and spread plainly before him. He recalled what the empousai had said, about attacking demigods, about what Nico had called a 'safe haven' in Camp Half-Blood and how they were forced to travel armed everywhere they went for the inevitability of facing monsters that appeared on their tails. For some reason, it hadn't clicked to Will that monsters would be after him too. "He's been following me around and protecting me for all day every day for, what, two years?"

Percy immediately shook his head, a brief flicker of horror passing across his face. "Gods, no. Fuck, nothing that extreme. No." Shaking his head again, he turned and paced back the other way, eyes on his steps. "When we worked out sort of what was going on, your schedule and everything, Nico and Annabeth decided it might be a good idea to set up wards or whatever they're called around the places you usually were."

"Wards?" Will echoed. He felt a little like a parrot for how he found himself mimicking Percy's words.

Percy nodded. "Yeah, it's a Hecate thing or whatever. Got Hazel and Lou Ellen – she put up her hand for it – to mark them out. At your flat, at your college, at the hospital. It probably seems like a massive invasion of your privacy, but it keeps the monsters out of them."

Will hadn't thought of that. Not the monsters – for in the past few seconds he'd rapidly been confronted with the horror that monsters had been after him – but that it was an invasion of privacy. What, that he was being protected by people he didn't even see? Apparently didn't even know? He felt a wash of unexpected guilt rise within him. "How?" He found himself asking.

"How what?"

"How does it work?"

Percy shrugged, scrubbing his hand through his hair once more. "To be honest, I don't really understand how the Mist works. That's Hazel's and the kids of Hecate's area of expertise. Something about muffling your presence of some such, though it's supposed to be really hard to do. You can only do it on pretty small areas, too; something like Camp Half-Blood wouldn't work."

Will could only agree to the insinuation of difficulty. He hadn't understood much of what the Mist was when Nico had described it to him either. "And that protected me?"

"Just about," Percy said. "Whenever you were out and about wandering between places, Nico would usually just drop by to keep an eye on you to make sure you were alright."

Will slowly shook his head in disbelief. "He did that every day?" He felt another unconscious wash of guilt rise within him for every time he'd gone to a friend's house. What, did Nico just sit around and wait for him to finish? How horribly boring and frustrating would that be?

"Not every day exactly," Percy said. "He's not around all the time. He can't be. That's where the rest of us step." He flashed Will a smile. "Today's just my day."

Will was still rocked on his foundations, staring blankly before himself in stupefaction. Nico had… every day? Or as good as, anyway. Why? Why would he do that? Surely it would have been exhausting. No one should put themselves through that, even for a good friend. Making sure Will was safe all the time must have practically consumed Nico's life. "How the fuck has he managed that?" Will found himself muttering incredulously. "How is he still even sane?"

Percy nodded emphatically, then winced slightly and adopted that sheepish expression once more. He didn't rescind his agreement to Will's words, however. "I ask myself that all the time. I don't know how he does it, especially with all the other hunting he squishes into his day. I swear, he must fight in his sleep."

"Other hunting?" Will asked.

"Monsters. Culling, or whatever you want to call it. Usually they come up in little pockets and they're not too hard to track down. You can usually source them through the media and stuff." Percy shrugged. "Although, I reckon it's been a bit more crazy around New York at the moment than usual. It's probably why you've been attacked so openly lately. Probably the only reason you bumped into Nico at all, actually."

Attacked… Will had been attacked, hadn't he? By the gryphon, for one. Did the empousai count? He found himself staring without seeing once more. Had there been others? Others that Will hadn't even realised? With a sick twist of his gut, his mind flickered back to when he'd run into Hazel hauling Nico to the hospital. Had that been because of a monster attack meant for Will? He felt his hands curl around the bench seat, felt a splinter stab his fingertip but barely acknowledged it.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up about it," Percy said, pausing in his pacing before Will and clapping a hand gently on his shoulder. "He chose to do that, and we all wanted to help."

"But why?" Will found himself saying. He couldn't seem to wrap his head around it. "Why would he go so far? I mean, he said we were good friends, but not… that's just…"

"He said that, did he?" Percy asked, and the sudden quietness of his voice drew Will's attention. He was regarding Will thoughtfully, a little sadly, and Will wasn't sure if he entirely wanted to know why. He only nodded slightly, jerkily.

Sighing, Percy tipped his head back and looked up at the sky before taking a step backwards and letting his hand slip from Will's shoulder. "Well, he's a stubborn person, I'll give him that. Stubborn and a little terrifying, if you hear most of the kids at camp." He spared Will a sad little smile. "I think he scares them almost as much as he leaves them in awe."

The way he said it made Will think that maybe Percy wasn't entirely removed from his collectively termed 'them'. He barely considered it, however, for his thoughts were very fixedly focused in one direction. "Percy, how can I get in contact with him?"

Percy, having taken up his pacing once more, paused in step again and shot Will a guarded glance. "With Nico?"

"Yeah."

"Well… you don't, really. I mean, you can try and call his cell, but he never picks up, and Iris messages are..." He trailed off with a shrug.

"Where's he live, then?" Will was only detachedly aware that such a question would probably ring alarm bells in most people. "Can I go and see him?"

Percy pursed his lips. Slowly he shook his head, though Will was relieved to see it wasn't exactly in denial. "I don't know. He jumps around all over the place. The beauty of shadow travel, I guess; he can be in New York one minute and Venice the next."

Shadow travel. So that's what it was called. Will hadn't even thought to ask Nico. "What about Camp, then?"

"What about it?" That wariness was back in Percy's tone.

"Can I go and wait for him there? He goes there to visit, doesn't he?"

Percy nodded slowly. "Yeah, sometimes. Most of the time it's just a bit of a drop off; he goes there after a hunt just to crash in the Hades cabin then disappears without leaving the room."

"Where is it?" Will asked. "Where is Camp Half-Blood?"

"Nico didn't tell you?"

"He told me just about everything else," Will said, and despite the casualness of his words he couldn't help but think that Nico had left that part out on purpose.

From the expression on Percy's face, he thought the same. He was clearly hesitant to speak, yet after a long moment of Will staring up at him imploringly, he sighed and seemed to sag a little. "If Nico chops my head off for this, just be aware of the fact that you'll be the one stitching it back on again."

Will couldn't help but smile, if a little feebly. He wasn't feeling very well about what he'd just learned. Not at all. "Sure thing. Just drop my name at the hospital and I'll be right at that."

Percy chuckled as he got out his phone. Somehow, Will didn't think he found it all that funny.

* * *

Nico shadowed straight into Percy's little flat, surfacing in the middle of the living room. The long flights of stairs always seemed excessive and he was feeling tired as it was.

Percy was already there, seated on the couch and talking to Annabeth where she leaned against the dining table across from him. At Nico's entrance, they both glanced his way. He didn't miss the faintly worried frowns, but neither spoke in concern.

"You both ready to go?" He asked by way of greeting

They nodded in synchrony, though neither made to move. When he shifted his gaze between them, Percy straightened slightly and spoke. "I talked to Will today."

Nico could only nod. He wasn't happy about the circumstances, about Will knowing, and didn't know what to do about it, but he'd expected what would follow. Knowing his friends as he did, knowing how much they'd all missed Will too, he couldn't blame them for making contact once more when so much had been revealed.

Nico hated it. He hated that their intentions had fallen through, that he hadn't managed the duty he'd set himself. That, despite everything and their combined efforts, nothing could quite stop Will from being dragged back into their world. Nico had thought of little else for the past two days; it had lent him strength in chasing down the hoards of monsters that were unexpectedly plaguing New York at present. It was nothing critical, but enough to keep him busy. And he needed to be kept busy.

"I figured you probably would," Nico said quietly.

"He was asking about you," Annabeth said, clearly having spoken to Percy about the situation already. "About everything, but especially you. Nico –"

"I can't do anything about it, Annabeth," Nico sighed. "What would you like me to say? It's not like he remembers. He's just found out."

Annabeth opened her mouth to reply but closed it again a moment later. She'd been one of his most loyal supporters in helping Will stay safe, in keeping their world from him. For Annabeth, who had been chased by monsters for as long as she could remember, who had moved to Camp Half-Blood at such a young age, the ideal that they'd been attempting to provide for Will was a veritable heaven. If she couldn't have it, then she'd try damn hard to help her friend in her place.

Now, however, she was apparently having mixed feelings on the matter.

Nico bit back the urge to scowl at them both for their unspoken thoughts. He didn't have the energy at the moment anyway. Instead, he shook his head and glanced down at his shoes. A bootlace had come undone and he crouched to fix it. He knew there was something more they wanted to say, something that was hanging in the air, but he wouldn't ask for it. He didn't think he wanted to hear.

Percy only managed to maintain his silence for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was hushed, almost tentative. "Will told me you said you were just friends?"

Nico busied himself with tying his shoe, folded double so he wouldn't have to look at Percy's face. It was still a struggle to keep his voice steady. "Yeah, I did."

"Nico…" There was a touch of pained regret in Percy's voice.

"It's easier this way, Percy," Nico said with a sigh. He dropped his forehead onto his knee and closed his eyes briefly. To very few other people would he admit such a thing. "It hurts less this way."

"In the short term or long term, though?" Annabeth asked.

Nico had nothing to say to that. He didn't think long term. He hadn't thought long term in a long, long time. He couldn't, not when despite his insistence he knew the fruitlessness of the endeavour he'd set himself with by protecting Will and his demigod-less life. He knew it would be impossible to keep it up forever. That didn't mean he wouldn't damn well try.

Straightening, Nico spared barely a glance for Percy and Annabeth each. "You good to go?"

They both stared at him for a moment before Annabeth nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, we're good."

"Let's go hunt some monsters," Percy said with a subdued smile.

Nico could only agree to his sentiment. Despite his tiredness, he felt more than ready to hit something. He had for days. Stepping towards his friends, Nico looped his arms through theirs in tandem and shadow travelled them from the room.


	7. Chapter 7 - Feeling Home

**Chapter 7: Feeling Home**

Will felt it the moment he passed within the field of protection of Camp Half-Blood. It wasn't quite like sliding through a cool surface of water, but he could understand where Percy had gotten the analogy from.

 _"You'll have to walk a ways," Percy said, tapping through his phone before stepping towards Will to show him the map he'd pulled up of Long Island Sound. Will mimicked the input, typing it into his own phone so the image presented swirled dizzyingly for a moment. "It's up the end of the island, so if you keep driving along Farm Road you'll basically reach the forest you'll have to trek through. It's not a long drive."_

 _Will stared down at the map fixedly, almost obsessively. He hadn't realised when Nico had taken him there on their spontaneous shadow travel that it was so close. Or at least that it was practically in New York. The camp hadn't looked like any place he had seen before, even with that unerring touch of familiarity that niggled at him when he saw it._

 _That thought hurt. He couldn't remember and it hurt all over again._

 _"Thanks for this, Percy," Will said, glancing back up at him. "I really appreciate it."_

 _Percy shrugged. "Yeah, well, you're my friend too."_

 _"I was?"_

 _"Are," Percy corrected with a smile. Will felt a sharp twinge in his chest at that. "I told you, I didn't ever really think it would work. I'm surprised we managed to keep you out of it for as long as we did, actually. Generally the older you get the more easily and accurately monsters can sense you."_

 _"Yeah…"_

 _"Just try to keep me out of the conversation as much as you can when Nico drills you on how you knew where Camp was."_

 _Will raised a curious eyebrow. "You're scared of him?" When Will considered the both of them, Percy definitely capable in his own abilities, it seemed ludicrous._

 _Percy's grin became teasing. "Almost as much scared as I love him. It's the same with just about everyone. Aren't you?"_

Will thought about that as he crunched through leaf litter, weaving through trees and peering about himself for the first glimpse of camp. He thought about Percy's words and he thought about Nico. He thought about Nico a lot.

All of it was incredible to believe, though Will didn't feel an ounce of disbelief for even a second. That Nico had done so much for him without Will's knowledge. That he'd stuck by him for two years without making contact even once. That he apparently cared enough about Will that he would design his whole life around keeping him safe. What kind of a friend would do that for another? Will hardly felt worthy of it.

He liked Nico. Will wasn't sure exactly what it was that he liked given that he barely knew him at all, but he found he did. He was blunt and to the point, and even if every other word he'd said to Will had been somewhat exasperated he'd spoken like he cared. He'd answered Will's questions though Will could tell that he clearly didn't want to. He'd saved his life. Twice. No, probably more than that. Countless times.

That, and there was that warmth. The warmth and flicker of what Will had gradually come to realise was affection that grew within him whenever he thought of Nico in recent weeks. It had seemed so bizarre, so unwarranted given that he barely knew him, except…

They must have been close. Truly good friends if Will could still feel what he did despite not remembering Nico. Because he did feel. He felt something that seemed to settle itself more firmly within him every day.

But what had Percy said? That he thought Nico was scary? Will couldn't understand that. Intimidating, for sure. Terrifying in his sword skills, definitely. But scary? No, Will didn't think so. Maybe it was a combination of reasons, that Nico hadn't ever made any kind of threatening move towards him but what could be construed as protectiveness, that Will had come to realise how much he had protected him for years, but he couldn't think it.

Nico was scary? No, not really. Not to Will, anyway. He felt that, and that feeling was just one more that ached slightly for the lack of memories that accompanied it. Will regretted so dearly what had been taken from him, longed to remember Camp Half-Blood and the life he'd lived there, but he suspected not being able to remember his friends, not remembering Nico especially, would be one of the most profound losses he couldn't recall.

Will was thinking just that – and admittedly digging himself into a melancholic ditch – when the trees thinned then cleared at the crest of a hill. Will paused atop its peak and when he looked down upon the sprawling expanse of camp, the lake and river that divided it in half, he felt a sudden uplifting of that melancholy to be replaced by a nostalgic warm the tingled all the way to his toes.

Will couldn't remember Camp Half-Blood – not really – but it felt as though it remembered him.

There was the distance ring of cabins around the hearth that he'd seen only briefly. Alongside it the armoury with its swarm of kids in casual armour – casual armour? Will had shaken his head when Nico had mentioned it – and the stables to its left. The archery range that Will couldn't help but stare at for a little longer in deference to what he now knew of his father.

There was a big house that was, apparently, rather aptly named the Big House just down the hill from him. What looked like volleyball courts sat before it. A little further along, past a widening expanse of lake and almost distant, a grandiose amphitheatre stood proudly. Beyond that, a mountain of stone that Will could only shake his head at for the sight of a couple of kids scrambling its heights. All of it. It was all so vaguely familiar that Will pined for it, even if he couldn't quite remember any of it.

It hurt. God, but he wished he could remember.

Making his way slowly down the hill, Will wasn't sure what his approach should be. He half expected to be thrown out on his arse, rejected as one who had been a demigod yet was no longer a part of their circle. As he passed between the volleyball court and the Big House, several of the kids on the courts paused in their admittedly vicious games to stare at him owlishly. A little stunned, very curious, yet not as floored as those he'd seen but days before when he'd first arrived had been. Will thought he even recognised a few from his brief glimpse of the campers at the cabins.

He was distracted, however, by the call of his name from the direction of the Big House. Turning, Will caught sight of a tall young woman – definitely not a teenager and looked to be about his age – sitting on the steps alongside a pair of juniors. She had a mess of bright red curls and a sun-kissed face smattered in freckles. A pair of overalls that actually looked fashionable upon her hung low on her hips as rose to her feet, the straps looped at her waistband. Will thought they looked to be smeared either with paint or some rather abstract embroidery. Without a glance towards the two kids left behind, she started at a jog towards him.

Will paused in step, awaiting her arrival. He didn't recognise her but she clearly knew him, and Will almost expected to recall something of her, some feeling as he had grown to recognise them, if not solid memories. She stopped at his side, looking him up and down. "What are you doing here?" She asked.

Will paused briefly. How did he explain this? Honesty was usually the best approach, but what if he really was kicked out of the camp for it? "I wanted to come and see…" He began, but trailed off.

Surprisingly, the woman adopted a sympathetic expression, a sympathetic smile, and nodded as if in understanding. "Right. I can imagine you'd kind of want that."

"I can't stop thinking about it," Will admitted. "It's killing me."

The woman nodded, that sense of knowing apparent once more. "You know, I can understand that. Knowing about this world and not being a part of it is… it would be tough. To be honest, I think we were all kind of just wondering how long it would be for you before it happened."

Apparently everyone had been, and not just Percy. Will nodded slowly, tentatively, and his response must have been telling for in a start she slapped a hand to her forehead almost comically. "Ah, I'm sorry. You probably don't –" She winced slightly, then adopted a bright smile that made her face glow with welcoming warmth. "I'm Rachel. We're friends, and I swear it's not just because I've got an in with your dad."

Rachel reached for Will's hand and gave it a strong squeeze. Will blinked at her, uncomprehending, but banished the thought. He didn't really understand her but… wait, an in with his dad? Did Will even want to know? "It's okay. I'm sure it's pretty confusing for people."

Rachel shrugged. "Not as confusing as you might think. Or as confusing as it would be for you. We've had a while to get used to it."

"Yeah, I guess." A touch of melancholy resurfaced and Will had to thrust it aside. "To be honest, I actually thought that I might get kicked out of here the second I stepped over the threshold."

Rachel quirked an eyebrow questioningly. "Kicked out? Why?"

"Well, the way I've heard it, apparently there was something of a combined effort to make sure that I didn't learn about this place." Will tried to keep the touch of accusation from his tone but wasn't quite sure how well he managed it.

Shaking her head, Rachel cast a regretful glance over her shoulder, sweeping her gaze around Will towards the kids at the volleyball court. "No. No, you wouldn't be kicked out, Will. You've got that all wrong. Camp Half-Blood welcomes any and every demigod, no matter who they are, so long as they agree to keep the peace." She smiled a little sadly. "It might sound unbelievable to you, but keeping you out of it was actually for your own good."

Will wasn't sure about that. He had questions to ask for that very opinion, actually, because though what Nico and Naomi and Percy had all said about doing it 'for his own good' might be true, he couldn't see it. Why wouldn't he want to know? Why would everyone try to hard to keep him out of it?

Nodding, Will cast his own glance over his shoulder towards the kids at the courts. They'd pretty much all returned to their game, though Will saw a couple glance his way as he turned towards them but briefly. "Yeah, so I've heard."

They fell silent for a moment, just watching the kids. Finally, Rachel broke it with a cautiously prodding question. "If you don't mind me asking, why did you come here, Will? Not to mention, how did you know where Camp was? I can't imagine Nico would have told you."

"Oh, so Nico's the deciding factor when it comes to me, is he?" Will asked with a frown touched just slightly with annoyance as he turned back to her.

Surprisingly, Rachel's smile turned a little sad once more. "Yeah, you could say that. He's the one that goes above and beyond for you, anyway."

Will immediately felt a flush of guilt rise within him. Yes, he had, hadn't he? Nico really had gone above and beyond for him. Annoyance vanquished, Will hunched his shoulders slightly, peering up at Rachel a little awkwardly. "Is he like that with all of his friends?"

Rachel blinked. "What?"

"Does he always stick out his neck for the people he cares about?" Will shook his head. He still couldn't quite fathom how someone would so wholly commit their own life to the protection of their friend. "We must have been really good friends. I'm sorry that I don't…"

Rachel stared at Will with an unreadable expression for so long that Will felt himself begin to frown in confusion. Before he could speak in query, however, she murmured, "He said you were friends, did he?"

Will was reminded of Percy's words just the day before, of how he'd similarly commented on the term. Will hadn't thought much of it at the time, but this was the second instance it had happened. He felt his frown deepen. "Yeah, he did. Weren't we?"

"Friends?"

"Yeah."

Rachel shook her head, not so much in denial but strangely more as if in agreement. "Oh, you were friends. Really good friends, actually. I guess – I mean, I'd probably say you were Nico's first real friend that he made at Camp. He had Percy and Annabeth, and Thalia was here for a bit, but you…" She nodded, almost to herself. "You were just different."

Will was silenced at that. Nico's first friend? Was that why he was so loyal? A twinge in his chest drew Will to reach to his collarbone and rub it absently. He felt an upwelling of guilt once more; Will clearly meant a lot to Nico and yet Will couldn't remember the first thing about him.

"I wanted to speak to him, actually," he said, drawing his gaze back to meet Rachel's where she watched him almost a little too attentively. "That's why I came. Is he around at all?"

Rachel's lips quirked into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Nico's never really 'around', exactly. He drops in every now and then but usually just into the Hades cabin or when he has to stop by the Big House or something."

"Yeah, Percy said that."

"So Percy's the culprit that outed the location to you?" Rachel did smile this time, a little impishly.

Will managed a small smile in return. "Yeah. Don't tell Nico, or so Percy warns me."

"My lips are sealed," Rachel said with a smirk. Then she turned and beckoned Will after her in the direction of the Big House. "Come on. I guess you can wait for a while if you'd like. Nico might not be back for a couple of days, unfortunately, but he always returns to camp on Samhain."

"Samhain?" Will asked, following after her.

"Halloween," Rachel clarified. "It's sort of a good thing to have the Ghost King around for the darker celebrations of the year when the veil is thinnest."

There was so much about that statement that was mind-boggling that Will didn't know where to begin. "I'm sorry, did you just say Ghost King?"

Rachel flashed a smile over her shoulder. "I guess we've got a lot to talk about. No doubt Nico left out a few pivotal points. You don't have anywhere to be, do you?"

Will did. He very much did. He had his studies, his friends that were nagging him almost on the hour to see where he was, his mom who didn't know he'd taken a day trip to Long Island. He shouldn't just drop everything for this.

He shouldn't, but he was damn well going to.

Shaking his head, Will smiled at Rachel in return. "No. I wouldn't go anywhere for the world."

* * *

Will learned a lot about Camp Half-Blood in the following days, a lot of which was thoroughly grounded in nostalgia, in familiarity that seemed to grow every day. Much to his frustration, Will still couldn't remember anything, but he grew more and more comfortable simply being at Camp with every passing hour. It felt, on an innate and physical level, as though he'd come home.

Will spent much of his time with Rachel, who was apparently one of only a few adults on the Camp premises besides an actual centaur named Chiron and a man called Mr D that was apparently the God Dionysus. Will still wasn't sure if Rachel had been pulling his leg when she said that. Reportedly demigods tended to leave Camp when they reached adulthood, stepping loose to spread their wings and protect themselves with the skills they'd learned at Camp. That, or they took themselves to a place called New Rome in California which was something of a mirror of Camp Half-Blood but larger and for Romans. Will didn't want to contemplate the meaning of that. He was still having trouble at times coming to terms with the reality of Greek mythology being not so mythological.

Rachel seemed to have made it her duty to ensure that he wasn't thrown too out of his depth. She was the one who introduced Will to the kids that first day. To the children of Apollo in particular, many of who looked on the verge of crying or abrupt outbursts as several others made proclamations about how they'd 'missed him' and were 'so happy you could come back'. Those kids… they were his siblings. Much and all as Will didn't want to think about the logistics of it, the thought filled him with a different kind of warmth. He spent a lot of time in the bright, open and welcoming Apollo cabin after that.

That was when he wasn't at the Hades cabin, that was. Rachel had said that when Nico returned to camp it was almost always directly into the cabin of his own father. As a result, for something approaching fear of the thought that he might somehow miss his arrival entirely, Will spent a lot of time simply sitting on the veranda of the cabin talking to Rachel. Not inside, as it somehow felt like trespassing to step within the dark walls of the cabin, but just waiting at the door. And listening. And hoping that maybe Nico would come back to camp a little earlier than the evening of Halloween.

Will took his meals in the Mess Hall alongside Rachel and the kids, a unique experience for more than the cuisine. Will had never seen nymphs before and almost missed his dinner entirely for simply staring at them as they swept with fluid grace amidst the tables. He went to the hearth when the entirety of camp did, gradually warming to the evenings of song. According to Rachel, those evening were even more spectacular when the camp was at full capacity. Throughout the year, the numbers waxed and waned with the arrival and departure of the holiday campers.

"Why are you here then?" Will asked Rachel. "Are you just visiting?"

Rachel shook her head then shrugged. "Sometimes. When I visit I usually stay for a while. I've been here for… about three weeks now?"

Rachel had explained to Will who – or more correctly what – she was. Will was a little astounded to realise she was a mortal, if in possession of the Oracle of Delphi, though at the same time felt a newfound sense of camaraderie with her. They shared that they were something of outsiders, if in different ways. He barely wanted to consider the reality of an Oracle, but that much he could accept and be thankful for.

Rachel was informative with just about everything. She made good her unspoken suggestion on the first day and filled Will in on many of the blanks that Nico had, whether accidentally or otherwise, overlooked. About the camp, about the quests, about the kids. About Nico himself.

"You called him a Ghost King?"

" _The_ Ghost King, yeah," Rachel nodded.

"How does that work, exactly?" Will was more than a little incredulous. He'd come to the realisation after brief discussion – mostly with his siblings when they weren't clamouring for his attention on for other subjects – that Percy's perspective of Nico was fairly accurate. He seemed to intimidate and yes, maybe even terrify a good proportion of the camp kids, but they all liked him. Were a bit awed by him too, for that matter. He'd heard stories about raising skeletons and legions of the dead, of terrifying acts of weaponry and battles where he'd taken on what were practically armies single-handedly and won.

At the same time, there were stories about the camp games, about how in the past they'd jokingly unanimously agreed that having Nico play Capture the Flag was cheating because he was more than capable of just shadow travelling behind enemy lines, even if he rarely did. It was all in good humour, however, and Will felt the admiring affection for the so named 'Ghost King' radiating from the younger campers. "He was the one who first showed me how to use my sword," an eleven year old sister by the name of Grettle said proudly. "Jonas from Athena said he saved his life when he and his big brother were trying to get to camp for the first time," another boy, Tomas, put in. A third, Pepper, a shy girl of nearly sixteen, smiled at Will as her siblings threw exclamations around one another and said, "You were both really good together, you know. Sort of complementary. I think you made each other better."

Pepper's words stuck with Will like a resounding echo for the rest of that day, pervading his discussion with Rachel when they'd returned back to sitting at the Hades cabin. Regardless of what she might say about the Ghost King, Will was growing more and more eager to learn simply about Nico and less and less convinced that he was as terrifying as many perceived him as being.

Rachel was scratching away at a sketch in her notebook, distractedly grazing shades and pencilling arcing lines. "The way I've heard it, he met the ghost of King Minos who taught him a bit about using his demigod powers. Minos was a manipulative bastard though, and when Nico found out he cast him back to the Underworld and stripped him of his title. It became his after that."

Will could only stare at Rachel after her offhanded explanation. Nico had…? He'd cast a ghost…? _What?_ Well, perhaps Will could see how Nico might be just a little bit scary. Surely it must take some kind of immense power to manage such a thing.

After two days of sitting around and talking, Will was coaxed into the field – mostly by his siblings – and somehow found himself with bow in hand and gingerly attempting to fire in a way that Rachel, standing on the sidelines and watching him with thinly veiled amusement, assured him he'd been able to do once upon a time. That and sword fighting, which Will's younger brother Kai similarly assured him he 'should know how to do because every demigod sort of just knows how'.

Will didn't believe that. He didn't believe it until he actually fired the bow and hit the target. Again. And a third time again. In spite of himself and his disbelief, Will was satisfied for the fact. Maybe he couldn't remember what he had been, but apparently his body did.

On the morning of Halloween, still with no sign of Nico, it was Rachel who finally answered the question that had been plaguing Will for days. They were seated once more on the steps of Hades' cabin, chatting idly as they watched the kids spilling from their cabins with varying degrees of enthusiasm. All up, Will counted about thirty, with more arriving and less leaving every day.

Rather than beating around the bush, Will just came out and asked. "Rachel? Can I ask you something?"

Rachel, leaning back on her elbows and grinning at two kids from the Hermes cabin as they tussled and eventually tumbled head over heels into a heap on the ground, glanced his way. "Sure. What's up?"

Will plucked at the knee of his jeans for a moment – borrowed jeans, thankfully, for he didn't know how he'd manage nearly a week in the same clothes otherwise – before shifting in his seat to turn towards her. "Nico, and everyone else apparently, seem to think that they're doing what's best for me by keeping me ignorant. By protecting me from monsters and making sure I don't have to get involved." He shook his head. It bothered him to be so bubble-wrapped, so oblivious, even if he could appreciate the efforts of those who did the wrapping. "Why are they all so adamant about that?"

Rachel contemplated for a long moment with a slight frown, humming thoughtfully. When she replied, it was just as thoughtful. "I wondered about that. I mean, when it first happened, when everyone – all of us, all of your friends – were trying to work out what would be best for you. It was actually surprising the overwhelming consensus; even those of us who didn't think that it would last pushed for you to be given the chance at a normal life."

"A normal life?" Will asked, ignoring the now familiar ache in his chest that arose whenever he was reminded of how much he'd forgotten. He hadn't even known that Rachel had been his friend before she'd told him.

Rachel nodded. "Normal. Without being hounded by monsters and whatnot. Being able to live a life without the threat of spontaneous attacks." She spared Will a crooked smile. "Does it sound strange that so many demigods are obsessed with that prospect?"

Slowly, Will shook his head. It didn't sound strange, even if he didn't think that ignorance would be better. He desperately wanted to remember everything, even knowing that it wouldn't happen, but he thought he might be able to understand the longing for a release from constant fear. What would that be like, to be constantly hounded by monsters, to never know a time when he wasn't looking over his shoulder with the fear of an assailant launching itself towards him. "I guess… I could imagine."

Nodding once more, Rachel pushed herself upright and dropped her elbows to her knees. She sighed. "That's just it, isn't it? I could imagine too, but I've never had to live it. For me, when I first found out – or more, when I first really understood, because I've always been able to see through the Mist – even when I was with Percy and Annabeth and we were running for our lives it was exciting. It was incredible, if terrifying. I've never had to live in such fear before and that made it less… I guess less horrible. You could probably say that living without that was what Nico, what Percy and Annabeth and all the rest of our friends, thought would be the best for you."

Will had nothing to say to that. Drawing his gaze back across the green, he watched the two Hermes kids finally pick themselves up and race in the direction of the Mess Hall. They were laughing loud enough for their voices to echo the entire way across the ring of cabins. They were happy. Safe. What would it be like to live with the knowledge that such safety was nothing but a dream? Was practically unattainable?

Will couldn't fully understand it, but he thought he understood just a little better now. It pained him to think that the friends he'd once had, that Nico, had thought giving him that life was what was best for him. Will loved his life. He loved the thought of becoming a doctor, of helping people, of working at the hospital alongside his mom. Of even using the supposed healing abilities that Nico had talked about and Rachel had extrapolated upon. What sort of good would he be able to do with that power?

And yet if it was at the cost of not knowing all of this? Of never seeing his friends again, even if he admittedly couldn't remember them? Was it really worth it?

Rachel's sudden straightening drew his momentary attention. "Reyna," she said – or called – with a start of surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Following the line of her gaze, Will settled his attention upon a tall, broad-shouldered young woman perhaps a little older than he who had just stepped into the green between the cabins. She was imposing to say the least, from her long strides to the cool blankness of her expression as she turned towards Rachel and Will. Or at least it was blank until her gaze flickered to and settled upon Will. A slight frown drew across her brow.

In an instant she was striding towards them, boots audibly thudding on the ground as she approached the Hades cabin. She paused just before the steps and glanced between the two of them, folding her arms across her chest. Will immediately recognised her as someone not to mess with. Someone who –

"I know you," he found himself blurting out.

Reyna's eyebrows twitched as she regarded him. "You don't remember me though," she said, knowingly. She had a low, steady voice, but it wasn't quite as intimidating as her expression or her wide stance.

Will shook his head hesitantly. "No, I don't. Sorry. But I – it sounds weird, but I can sort of feel it. I've… I've realised I can sort of…"

Reyna regarded him for a moment more, mild curiosity morphing into a deeper, more thoughtful frown. "Interesting," she murmured.

"What are you doing here, Reyna?" Rachel asked, rising to her feat and shifting to lean against the bannister at the top of the veranda steps. "I haven't seen you for a while."

Shifting her attention back towards Rachel, Reyna shrugged. "It's Halloween."

"And?"

"Hazel came for a visit to see Nico. I decided I'd join her."

Will straightened at the mention of Hazel as much as Nico. "Hazel's here? Is Nico here too?" He found himself glancing over Reyna's shoulder as though expecting to see them just behind her.

Reyna shook her head, the thick length of her dark braid snaking over her shoulder. "Hazel dropped by the Mess Hall to talk to Chiron briefly, but Nico's not here yet. Or at least I'm assuming?" She tipped her chin towards the cabin behind them.

"Not yet," Rachel said. "We've been waiting."

"Have you?" Reyna hummed thoughtfully, and her gaze drawing slowly back towards Will. "And just what are you doing here, exactly?"

Despite himself and the fact that he knew that, somehow, he and Reyna had known one another in the past – Will was getting good at recognising that feeling – he had to swallow down his nervousness before replying. "I just wanted to talk to him and didn't know how else to find him."

"He is a bit hard to get a hold of sometimes," Rachel said as if in support of his claim. She shrugged slightly as Reyna spared her a glance.

It was only a brief glance, however, before Reyna was turning her dark eyes back towards him. She could likely scare tiger with that stare. "What kind of questions?"

"Reyna, it's not going to be a problem," Rachel said in an obvious attempt at deflection. "I'll make sure everything's alright."

Will glanced between Rachel and Reyna in confusion. "What? What do you mean?"

Rachel just shook her head. "I think Reyna's probably just worried you'll upset him. Or upset him more."

Shifiting his gaze back to Reyna, Will regarded her with knew eyes. That flatness, the thoughtfulness, even the touch of guardedness – Reyna was concerned for Nico? That something Will would say would be upsetting to him? Will was abruptly put in mind of a protective older sister chasing away potential threats from her younger brother.

"I'm not going to upset him," Will found himself saying. "Or at least that's not what I intend to do. I guess… I guess I just wanted to talk to him. To thank him."

"To thank him?" Reyna echoed.

"He's done a hell of a lot for someone who's just a friend," Will said. "Even a good friend – what he's done for me is –"

"A friend?" Reyna interrupted.

And there it was again. First Percy, then Rachel, and now Reyna. Will found himself frowning. Rachel had said they were friends, that they were definitely close and that Will had possibly even been one of Nico's first friends. So what was this? What was the questioning note in Reyna's voice, the touch of something that was almost anger?

"What does that mean?" Will asked, feeling his own flicker of frustration rise. "What's all this about?" He spared a glance to Rachel. "You were surprised too when I said we were friends. Can you tell me what's going on?"

Rachel pursed her lips. "If Nico didn't tell you then it's probably not our place."

"Tell me what?" Will asked, frustration only growing. There was definitely something absented from the conversation, and though Will might have an inkling of _some_ thing, he didn't want to make assumptions. Not without basis.

"Nico wouldn't have told him because he doesn't want to push him into anything," Reyna said dryly, overlooking Will entirely to turn hooded eyes towards Rachel. "Even if it hurt him to do so."

"Tell me _what_?" Will all but demanded. Or maybe it was a demand, he wasn't sure. He couldn't much hear himself over the suddenly, incensed thudding of his heartbeat in his ears.

Despite Rachel's evident reluctance, Reyna shifted her attention towards Will. Her flat regard was unyielding. "I wasn't sure about you for a long time, Will Solace," she said, the use of his full name making her sound oddly formal. "I liked you, and we were friends, but I wasn't sure if you were right for Nico."

"What?" Will asked, anger suddenly dissipating to be replace with blank confusion. What Reyna said definitely sounded like –

"But that changed when I spoke to you once. I think you'd been together for about two years at that point, maybe a little longer. It was the first time we really spoke about the relationship you shared with him." Reyna's eyes were hard and unblinking, yet there was a touch of something welling deep within them. Sadness? Regret? "I asked you what he was to you, and for the first time if you thought you were good enough for him."

She sounded very much like a protective older sister, Will thought. Only detachedly, however, for he was staring at Reyna with heartbeat thudding insistently in his ears for an entirely different reason this time. Was she…? What she was saying, she was really suggesting that…

"You said that you didn't think it was a matter of being good enough for one another but more if you fit together the right way," Reyna continued. "That what mattered the most was that you loved one another. You told me, Will, that you thought he was the love of your life and that you'd take an arrow for him in a heartbeat." Cocking her head, she regarded him with just a touch of sceptical questioning. "Does that answer your question?"

Will stared. He stared and stared and couldn't think of a single thing to say. Worst of all was that Reyna's words rung true. On a deep, soul-deep level, he knew it was the truth. And that… that made it perhaps the worst thing that he could possibly have forgotten.

* * *

There was a certain art to timing when he returned back to Camp. Whenever it was feasible, Nico ensured that it was at meal times so that the entirety of the camp's residents would be otherwise occupied. Then he could slip into their midst without any shouts of surprise and exclamations to draw undue attention to himself. At least that was what he hoped for. Most of the time it didn't work half so well as that.

The camp was quiet when he stepped out the door of the cabin, with only the distant echo of the kids at lunch ringing through the cool midday air. Just cool, yet not entirely chilling. Winter hadn't quite hit yet, and Nico took a deep, sharp breath that flooded his lungs. He was tired, had likely been pushing himself too hard in recent days, but he didn't care. It was better to hunt monsters that to give himself the chance to think.

To think about Will. Nico didn't want to think about Will anymore than he already had been for the past two years.

Only when he stepped through the door did Nico realise the cabins weren't entirely vacated. Seated on the bottom step of the Hades cabin, he saw the back of Reyna's familiar, braided head turned away from him, the hood of her jacket bunched up around her neck. He wasn't surprised to see her. Hazel had messaged him to let him know that she would coming along when she arrived.

"Long time no see," he said, taking himself down the steps and dropping to sitting at her side.

Reyna glanced his way. She offered a small smile. "It has been at that. How've you been?"

"The usual. Hunting monsters is a full-time job."

"Tell me about it," Reyna murmured in agreement.

Out of everyone in the world, Reyna was perhaps in the most similar situation to Nico. They were like mirror images on opposite sides of the continent. Despite her duties to Camp Jupiter and her place in New Rome, Reyna had made it her job to hunt down monsters in nearby locations as much as Nico had. Even if she didn't have the advantage of shadow travel, she did a damn good job of it.

Sometimes Nico would simply take himself to her house in New Rome, let himself in because Reyna always insisted he was welcome whenever he needed it, and simply sit in her presence. They didn't often have to talk, and that was what made if comfortable.

"How's Timone going?" Nico said by way of conversation.

Reyna shook her head with a puff of amused laughter. "I swear, the Augurs get better and better every year."

"I can hear the sarcasm in your words."

"Good for you. I'm not trying to hide it."

"Surely he's actually better than that last one. What was her name? Ferris?"

Reyna nodded. "Yes, definitely better. Timone has a thing for speaking in old-oratory tongues, though. Makes him sound like a pompous arse as well as confusing half of his listeners."

"I guess it's no wonder why Caesar was stabbed to death in the good old days," Nico commented. "I have to admit, listening to that kind of thing drives me insane."

"You and me both," Reyna agreed.

They fell silent for a moment, their usual comfortable silence, and Nico drew his gaze across the surrounding cabins, further towards the distant Mess Hall in which he couldn't quite make out the kids within but could very definitely distantly hear them. Camp Half-Blood had been an awkward place for him for much of his younger years – or at least it had been until everything had changed. Will had been a very big part of that.

"I just thought I should hang around to give you a heads up," Reyna said, interrupting his thoughts. "Will's here."

It was as though she'd been reading his mind and thought to bring it up. Nico snapped his attention towards Reyna, staring at her in a mixture of disbelief and foreboding. "What?" And then, "Why?"

"I believe he wants to talk to you."

"How did he get here?"

"That, I do not know," Reyna said with a shrug. "I didn't ask."

Squeezing his eyes closed, Nico bowed his head to his knees. He hadn't prepared for this. Halloween was often a difficult night, with ghosts and skeletons seeming to think it their place to arise and terrify the wits out of the kids who never seemed to remember from the previous year that they were largely harmless. Or at least harmless if Nico was around to send them away. But now Will was here.

 _I should have probably expected it_ , he thought fatalistically, fingers curling into the legs of his jeans in a clutching grasp. _It's not like I could have just avoided him forever._ Will had always been persistent like that. It had been the basis for their very relationship, even. Nico would have to have been oblivious to think that it wasn't going to happen eventually.

"Do you know what he wants to talk about?" Nico asked, not quite able to look up yet.

"Not exactly. He said he wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?" Nico did lift his gaze at that. "Why?" The expression Reyna turned upon his said she thought him an idiot for asking and he subsided, leaning back against the step behind him. "Whatever."

Another silence, and when Reyna broke it, it was in slight reprimand. "You know, I heard that you told him you were just friends. Good friends, Will emphasised, but just that."

Nico closed his eyes again. Percy and Annabeth had made similar suggestions but days before, only they had subsided when he resisted their persistence. Reyna would likely be less easy to shake with simple deflections. "It's easier that way."

"For you or for him?"

"For everyone."

"I don't believe that," Reyna said almost dismissively. "And I doubt you do either."

"Reyna," Nico began.

"Nico." Reyna cut him off sharply. "You're hurting yourself by doing this. Why didn't you just tell him?"

Nico shook his head. It was difficult to get angry with Reyna. She practically forbade such outbursts with her own level-headedness and Nico had learned long ago to keep such under wraps. "I didn't want to push him into feeling anything just because he feels he owes it to a past he can't remember."

"Even if he already feels it?"

Nico frowned, glancing towards her. "What?"

Reyna regarded him sceptically before murmuring, "Nothing. Just a hunch."

For a moment, Nico only stared at her. Then he sighed and shook his head once more. "I wouldn't know how to tell him anyway. How would that subject even be broached? What, I just up and admit that I was fairly certain we'd be spending at least a good portion of the rest of our lives together when he doesn't even remember me anymore?"

Reyna's smile wasn't amused, was more sympathetic. "That might be a bit much."

"Right."

"What if you didn't have to?"

"Didn't have to what?"

"Be the one to tell him."

Nico stared at her, reading what was clearly written on her face. Then he squeezed his eyes closed once more and fought back the touch of hysteria that rose within him. "Reyna, tell me you didn't." She didn't speak and he peered at her tentatively. "Did you?"

"I did."

"Why?" Nico's voice came out slightly strangled.

"Because you wouldn't," Reyna said. "And with everything else that he's come to learn, he deserved to know. Besides, you didn't really think that he would have remained ignorant forever, did you? Someone would have let something slip."

Nico could admit that she was probably right. He'd admit it even if he did struggle to gain a hold of himself and the panic and foreboding settling heavily in his gut. How did Will react to that? What did he think? Nico wasn't sure he wanted to know. "What am I supposed to so now?" He asked. "How do I…?"

Reyna regarded him silently once more. Though her face was hard, emotionless even, Nico had long grown to understand that true emotion was there even if it wasn't visible. He could almost feel it radiating from her; not apology or regret, but sympathy, affection even, and the strength of support. Of course, because Reyna would always support Nico, just as he would support her

"Well," she said after a long pause. "You could start by talking to him."

"About?"

"Don't be obtuse, Nico. And for the record, I'm pretty sure between Rachel and the Apollo cabin he's pretty well informed of just about everything else. You know apparently he was actually coaxed into archery yesterday?"

Nico bit back a wince. This was not going to their plan at all. Not that his plans hadn't erupted spectacularly barely a week before, but this was even worse. _He's not been kept out of any of it_ , Nico thought miserably, hanging his head. _Always… demigods are always dragged back in at the end of the day._

"Don't look so forlorn," Reyna said, gently resting a hand on his shoulder as she rose to standing. "There's no point overthinking it. And no point putting it off, either."

"Even if –" Nico cut himself off.

"What?"

Nico swallowed tightly, staring up at Reyna imploringly. "Even if it scares me?" He managed. It didn't feel right to admit it, and Nico wasn't sure if he would have been able to with anyone but Reyna.

Reyna only smiled. "Especially if it scares you. And don't try to tell me otherwise; you've never been one to run away from a challenge."

She held out a hand to him, and Nico only stared at it for a moment before taking it. Reyna was right. She was, really. There was no point in skirting the issue. As she pulled him to his feet, squeezing his hand for a moment longer before starting in the direction of the Mess Hall, Nico resigned himself to the inevitable.

It was time to face the music.


	8. Chapter 8 - Memories

A/N: Double update here, guys, so don't forget to check out the second part of it!

* * *

 **Chapter 8: Memories**

Med School. Will should be worried about Med School. He should be concerned about how much time he'd already missed, about the messages his friends were still sending him, about the concerned but attempted understanding voicemails from his mom. And he was.

For about a half a minute at lunch when Rachel reminded him of it.

After that, Will went right on back to thinking as he had been. To turning over what he'd just learned from the hard-faced and seemingly merciless Reyna. Even the way she'd informed Will of the one aspect of his past that he had apparently been utterly oblivious to had been blunt and almost tactless. Not cruel but yes, very blunt.

Will hardly saw the kids around him. He'd been invited to sit at the Apollo table days ago and had felt nothing if not touched by the welcoming arms of his siblings who he couldn't remember but was coming to know anew. He liked talking to them, was fascinated by what some of them said of their demigod powers, had been itching to try them for days – especially healing, because Gods, it was _healing_. But not today. Today, Will wouldn't have noticed if the table was empty around him. He didn't even know what was on the plate placed before him.

 _You told me that you thought he was the love of your life…_

That ache sprung even more fiercely into his chest as Reyna's words, lowly voiced and touched with something that might have been sorrow in anyone else, echoed in his mind once more. Why hadn't Nico told him that?

 _You'd take an arrow for him in a heartbeat._

Not just close. Not just good friends. Not even just dating as Will had almost begun to suspect. Apparently Will had loved him, and maybe, just maybe, Nico had loved him back. It explained it in a way, explained all of what had happened and why Nico had stood between him and the threats of the demigod world for so long. Did Nico… did Nico still love him?

Will closed his eyes resting his forehead onto his interlaced fingers. His head ached for the internal struggle of scrabbling for memories that weren't there. He desperately, _desperately_ wanted to know. He longed to remember because this – this was big. In some ways, for whatever reason, to Will it felt just as big as the secret of Camp Half-Blood, as the Gods, as the world of monsters and demigods itself. To Will…

 _Why didn't he tell me?_

Except that Will suspected why. In a horrible way, he thought he knew why Nico hadn't told him, and it was likely to avoid the thoughts and feelings nearly overwhelming him that very moment. Will was torn. On the one hand he barely knew Nico. He understood that he had protected Will, that Nico had dedicated his life to that protection for years. He knew that Nico cared for him, at least as a close friend and maybe as something more. But Will didn't _know_ him. Or more correctly, he didn't remember him. Regardless of what they had shared, Will didn't remember. He didn't remember falling in love with him, the gradual growth towards companionship and the kind of dedication that he'd throw his life away for. Because Will believed Reyna when she said that. She could have been lying, but Will believed it. He knew he was the type of person that would stand between others and danger. And for one he loved…

Will didn't know Nico, but on the other hand he felt like he did.

From the second he'd seen him, when he'd leap in front of the gryphon to defend him, when he'd turned around and spared Will barely a glance and half a word before disappearing, Will had felt something. It wasn't quite recognition, and there was no upwelling of triggered memories. But Will had felt it, a niggle deep within his chest. That niggle, the itch he couldn't scratch, had only grown the longer he contemplated it, the more times he bumped into Nico.

It was the same with the others. With Hazel and Percy, with the camp and its inhabitants. Even with Rachel a little, with Reyna slightly less. And yet at the same time Nico was different. He _felt_ different. Will had never relied so much on feelings over what his intellect was telling him, what his memories were assuring him, but he knew it. He knew Nico was special and that feeling only grew more and more pronounced as he considered it.

Will didn't have his memories but apparently Mnemosyne hadn't been able to touch what he felt on a physical level. What his body assured him was true.

Will desperately, desperately wanted to see Nico. To talk to him. To ask him – what he didn't know. Anything. To _know_ him. If he'd fallen in love with him once… Will didn't know why, but it didn't feel like that love was lost, even if it was confused. Will didn't feel like that feeling was stolen with his memories. He'd felt it but simply hadn't known what it was. He hadn't understood the vastness of it.

"Don't you like hamburgers?" Grettle asked from his side.

Will blinked into awareness, turning a hazy glance her way. Apparently there was something in his expression that was concerning, for Grettle frowned slightly. Will attempted – and likely failed – to offer a smile. "It's not that."

"Are you okay?"

Will released a heavy sigh before he could stop himself. His smile this time was even worse than the first. "Just thinking about something."

Grettle blessedly ceased her wary questioning, only for Rachel to take up the baton of speech in her place from Will's other side. She murmured quietly enough in his ear that he doubted even Grettle would have been able to hear. "Are you sure you're alright, Will? Sorry, Reyna can be a bit harsh in her honesty sometimes."

Will shook his head, turning his gaze down to his plate. Registered vaguely that there was indeed a hamburger on it this time. "No. No, it's alright. I'm glad I know."

"Are you -?"

"I'm fine. Just got a lot to think about."

Rachel made a humming sound of concern. "Do you think you'll… I mean, did you still want to talk to Nico?"

That drew Will's attention. He slowly turned towards Rachel, blinking in confusion. Did she think – what, did she think that because he knew he might be thrown by the situation? That he might consider Nico unfavourably as a result?

It hadn't. If anything, it was the complete opposite. He and Nico had shared something, something that clearly still stuck with Nico for the two years of bodyguard duties he'd put in place, and somehow with Will too for the feelings that wouldn't leave him alone. Even in that moment he felt as though his heart was about to burst painfully from his chest with the sudden roiling of _feeling_.

Will found himself shaking his head fervently. "Of course I do. If anything, I want to talk to him even more."

Rachel stared at him for a long moment. Her eyes weren't quite wide but there was definite consideration in her gaze, a thoughtfulness and almost concern. "I thought you'd say that."

Will blinked. "You – what?"

With a small smile, Rachel prodded at her own half-eaten hamburger. "It might have been two years, Will, but I was your friend, you know. I knew you well enough to know how you'd react in a situation like this."

"A situation like this?" Will said dubiously. "This sort of thing happened often?"

Rachel smirked slightly, but there was little humour to the expression. "Not exactly, no. But you're brave. You'd face a challenge head on any day rather than leaving it alone to stew."

Will had to agree with that. He might not have said as much in so many words, but he knew he was persistent when it came to matters he found of interest. Or import. Not for the first time in the past few days, Will sincerely regretted that he didn't remember Rachel too. He suspected they'd have been good friends in the past.

Whatever thoughts might have grown from that tangent were abruptly extinguished, however, when a sudden hush fell upon the Mess Hall. Will instinctively turned from Rachel, following the gazes of those around him and abruptly everything else in the hall seemed to fade away.

Nico looked tired. Tired and worn and resigned to the point of exhaustion. His pale face made the smudges under his eyes more pronounced, and the hunch of his shoulders made him seem even more withdrawn than he usually was. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his jacket and he was looking straight at Will.

Reyna was at his side. Will registered that as he did everything else. He knew that, as he rose to his feet, just about every demigod in the room dragged their attention towards him. They knew. Apparently everyone knew about Will's forced memory wiping, and they knew that there was something between he and Nico. A corner of Will's mind begrudged that no one had told him, but it was a very insignificant corner and easily dismissed.

Starting across the room, it was all Will could do not to run. He skirted the tables, not taking his eyes from Nico for even a second. When he finally stopped before him, it was to look down into Nico's dark eyes as they stared unblinkingly back up at him. He really was shorter than Will. Strange. From a distance and viciously wielding a sword he didn't seem quite so diminutive.

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Nor did any other demigod in the hall, and not a crunch of chewing teeth or a whisper of breath could be heard. Finally, Will found his tongue and spoke. Simply. Shortly. "Hi."

Nico's shoulders seemed to slump at that. Will wondered what that meant. He wished he knew. Had he once known? "Hey."

"Are you –" Will bit his words off, considered, then continued. "Would you mind if we talk?"

Slowly, Nico nodded. Then, with a glance spared towards Reyna at his side – who was staring at Will with not quite a glare but definitely a touch of a frown – he turned and led Will from the Mess Hall. The hush that followed in their wake was resounding.

Will didn't know where they were going, but apparently Nico had somewhere in mind. He walked ahead of Will, head bowed slightly and shoulders still a little hunched, and he didn't say a word. Will followed just as silently behind him.

The hearth. That was where they stopped. Will didn't know if that had any significance of if Nico was simply seeking the eternally lit warmth of the fire to stave off the early winter chill that stuck clouds in the sky and a bite in the breeze. Without ceremony, Nico lowered himself to the ground barely two feet from the flickering fire. Will slowly took a seat beside him.

They didn't speak for a long time. The sound from the Mess Hall had begun once more, a distant buzz of chatter that could have been about anything. Will barely heard it. He was too intent on watching Nico as Nico in turn simply stared at the fire. For whatever reason, Will didn't care if Nico found his staring strange. He couldn't look away from him, from the straight blade of his nose, the curve of his cheekbone, the darkness of his eyes shadowed by a scruff of a fringe. Even if he hadn't found him attractive Will would have stared.

And finally, he could keep silent no longer. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Nico blinked slowly but didn't turn towards him before replying. "I'm sure you can guess."

"Tell me anyway."

Seemingly unconsciously, Nico bit at his lip. For a moment he looked vaguely reminiscent of Hazel's incessant gnawing as Will had seen at the hospital. Will wondered if it meant the same thing; was Nico nervous? "I was trying to keep you out of it. That meant making sure you learned of as little as possible."

"Was?"

Snorting quietly, Nico spared him a roll of his eyes before turning his attention back towards the hearth. "I think we're a little past concealing things now, don't you? I'm sure you've managed to get up to date with as much as you could since you got here."

His tone was faintly sardonic, yet Will was actually eased by it. For some reason, that tone was more comfortable, more _familiar_ , than Nico's melancholic, almost pained mutterings. "I guess you could say that."

"Am I allowed to ask who told you where Camp was?"

"Depends. Can I ask you questions back?"

Nico glanced towards him sidelong once more. "It was Percy, wasn't it?" Nico sighed, nodding to himself before Will even confirmed his assumption. "I'd guess it was Percy. He wasn't keen for you to remain ignorant in the first place, even if he understood where we were coming from."

Will wanted to object to that. Over the past few days, he'd wanted to rant to someone, anyone, about the enforced ignorance placed upon him. What right did anyone else have to decide whether he knew of his past or not? He should have been allowed to know something that was so integral to him. And what of his friends? People he'd shared so much with? Even if he didn't remember them, they were obviously dear to him. More than that, they cared for him in return, didn't they? How could they have so effectively extract him from their lives?

Will wanted to know. He wanted to understand even if he didn't think he would ever accept it because now, knowing what he did, he couldn't imagine choosing obliviousness over knowing. Except that at Nico's words he didn't ask. He couldn't, for there was an edge of pain to Nico's offhanded statement that promised something deeper and far vaster.

"Didn't it hurt for you?" Will found himself asking instead.

He immediately wished he could retract his words at the sharp flinch that crossed Nico's face before he reasserted his blank-faced control once more. Expression smoothed, he stared unblinkingly at the fire. "Of course it did."

"Then how could you do that to yourself?"

"Obviously, because you're more important."

He made it sound like criticism, but Will felt the air gush from his lungs as though he'd been punched in the gut. Such a short, simple phrase and yet it meant so much.

It was a struggle to thrust the pain aside, the understanding that came with it – that Nico cared, that he still cared after all this time – but Will clamped down on the feeling to ask, "What if I didn't want that, then? What if I didn't want to forget?"

"You didn't have a choice, Will. Not after Mnemosyne took your memories. You can't get them back after that."

Will wanted to argue that fact, to question whether they were absolutely sure, except that he'd already asked Rachel. The weary expression that followed his question spoke for her, but she'd answered anyway. "We looked, Will. We tried. We couldn't find anything."

 _But that doesn't mean I couldn't know._ Will shifted in his seat, unconsciously – or perhaps instinctively – edging just a little closer towards Nico. "You could have told me."

Nico shook his head. "Telling you wouldn't be the same as you remembering."

"But I would have known."

"And then what? You'd feel obligated to live the life you had even if you didn't understand the importance of it. Even if things had changed for you and you didn't want it anymore." Nico turned towards him, blank faced but for his eyes. There was a lot to be read from his eyes, and Will wished he understood the language.

He did hear the unspoken words, however, because he'd considered them, however briefly, less than an hour ago. _You'd have felt the obligation to love me_. But that wasn't the same, was it? Will wasn't sure how much confidence he placed in a relationship with no shared memories and experiences – or at least on his part – but there was the feeling that was even then surfacing and swelling in Will's chest. As he met Nico's eyes, as his gaze drew across thin eyebrows and caught upon a sliver of a white scar just to the edge of his left one, they rose. As his trailed his eyes over his face, familiarising himself with straight, thin features, the firm set of his mouth, the way he held his chin just slightly tucked, he felt it.

Will might not remember Nico, but he felt like he did. He felt it, and there was a very big part of him screaming that he couldn't let this go.

"You could have told me," he said quietly. "You could have shared stories of what happened, of what we'd been through together. I could have relearned it all."

Nico turned back to the fire once more, berefting Will of his gaze and the confusing, unreadable depths of them. "It wouldn't have been the same. Hearing a story isn't the same as living it."

"So it wouldn't mean anything to you?"

"It wouldn't mean anything to _you_."

Will stilled his tongue at that. Nico was wrong in that regard at least. Reyna's words and what she'd said – it meant something. And it wasn't obligation, or guilt that had triggered it. It was as though the weight in Will's chest finally made sense. "I don't believe that."

Nico sighed a breath of laughter, the scowl that followed after erasing any amusement it might have held. He all but glared at the fire before him. "Of course you wouldn't. You've always been ridiculously stubborn."

Nico seemed to have a way for offering offhanded statements that struck like a blow. Something so simple, that he knew that of Will but Will didn't know the slightest thing about him in return… it ached in that hole in his chest that only seemed to be expanding. Maybe because of that, because of the touch of desperation, Will blurted out without even thinking. "I loved you. Reyna said I told her. Doesn't that count for anything."

Nico froze in his prior stillness. Slowly, so slowly and with such deliberation, he turned towards Will. His expression was so stunned that there was no hint of control impressed by that slowness. His eyes steadily widened, lips parting slightly and cheeks paling just a touch. "What did you say?"

"Reyna," Will repeated. "She told me that I –" He caught himself as Nico's face grew only more ashen. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost. Will didn't understand at first, and then it clicked. "I never told you. That I –"

"You never said…" Nico trailed off but didn't seem to realise it.

Will immediately felt a bout of self-hatred rise within him. He hadn't told him? He hadn't told Nico, who had done so much for him, sacrificed so much in the past two years, that he loved him? He'd told _Reyna_ but not Nico? Why the fuck hadn't he said anything?

Caught by Nico's stare, Will felt suddenly exposed. It was true that he didn't remember the events, the circumstances, the relationship that had triggered that apparent love, but he still felt as though he'd spoken a confession to his boyfriend and received nothing but stunned disbelief in reply. Was it so strange that he'd loved Nico? Had he been so avoiding of making that much clear?

Turning his own gaze towards the fire, Will swallowed tightly. He didn't know what to say. Where did that leave them after this? Will still wanted to convince Nico to talk to him, to tell to him about what they'd shared because he'd be damned if he didn't try to salvage some of those irreplaceable memories.

Will could feel Nico staring at him, and it was almost painful to be the subject of that gaze. He longed to ask questions, because he wanted to know. Even just a little bit, even just a memory, he desperately wanted to recall just a bit of it. Was that so much to ask? Maybe it was. He'd already asked so much of him without even realising it.

Into the silence, a weight seemed to settle. Will didn't know how to break it, but as it happened he didn't have to. Unexpectedly it was broken for him, by a girl, a slip of a girl who couldn't be more than eight appearing seemingly out of nowhere. Dark haired and in a plain dress with a shawl draped around her shoulders, she stood on the other side of the hearth with what looked like an old-fashioned poker and flipped a log over to roll more fully into the flames. As she did, she drew soft brown eyes towards Will and offered him a small smile.

At Will's side, Nico murmured a breath of words. "That's Hestia. People don't see her all that often."

Hestia. Will recalled what the other demigods kids, what Rachel, had told him of the Goddess of the hearth. He hadn't expected her to be a child, but supposed Gods probably had laws of their own. Before he could say anything in reply, Hestia straightened from her poking, raised her free hand and beckoned towards Will in an inviting gesture.

"Go to her," Nico said at his side. When Will glanced towards him, he was still a little ashen, eyes till a little wide, but he was clearly struggling to regain control of himself. Nico met his gaze briefly before tipping his head slightly. "When a God asks, you go. Especially if it's Hestia. She's one of the good ones."

The good ones? Will thought he would have to look into that. What made a god good? He didn't ask then, however. Instead, he obligingly rose to his feet and made his way around the fire. It was easier than trying to scramble together something that would even vaguely fix the situation that he'd unwittingly thrown himself into. Nico rose and followed silently after him.

Will stopped just before Hestia. She was short, her round face open and welcoming, her smile persistent in an almost maternal expression beneath eyes that looked too old for a child her age. She didn't say anything as Will met her gaze, only tilting her head slightly as though considering him. As though she was reading him like a book. Then she held out one small, pale hand.

"You asked. It's not much, but I can tell you."

Sparing a glance for Nico, who only shrugged an unhelpful shoulder in reply, Will frowned. He had no idea what she was talking about given that he couldn't remember asking her anything, but obligingly raised a hand. Tentatively, almost nervously, because she might be a child but she was a Goddess too and Will didn't know what to expect, he grasped her hand. Hestia's fingers were warm, as softly warm as the glow of the hearth itself, as they curled around his own.

Will didn't know what he expected from Hestia but it wasn't what followed.

In an instant he was swept away. It was as though his feet where knocked from him, his vision thrown and blanked to darkness. He felt a rush of warmth overwhelm him, a searing heat in his ears that wasn't quite painful, and he wondered if he'd lost balance and tumbled to the ground. He couldn't tell. He couldn't even feel his feet.

Then he blinked – or he thought he blinked – and the blinding darkness momentarily cleared. In its place was not Hestia's calmly smiling face and too-wise eyes, but an undulating screen of shadows and flames rising instead. And then images. Pictures. Scenes, like those of a movie. Will watched and as soon as he made out what it was he found himself frozen, the dizzy confusion stopping, and he was fixated into watching.

The scenes were blurred, as though seen through water. Except that he wasn't seeing it. He didn't see anything, Will abruptly realised. It wasn't _seeing_. They were like -

Memories.

Around the fire. The warmth. The darkness and shadow. Evening or night, their nights around Hestia's hearth in conversation or in song.

Will saw the clutter of children, the demigods leaning against one another, smiling and laughing and at ease as they couldn't be otherwise. Not outside of the safety of Camp Half-Blood. Will thought he might have even recognised some of them, though those he did looked far younger then he knew them.

Then he saw them. Himself. Himself as years younger than he was. Fourteen? Fifteen perhaps? In a vibrant orange t-shirt the likes of which were worn by most all of the demigods. Most of them except for the boy sitting beside him, his own garments so dark as to almost disappear him into the night.

Nico. Nico and Will. Had Will had the presence of mind to breathe, that breath would have caught in the back of his throat. Nico and Will, sitting alongside one another at what would have been seven or eight years ago. Companionably, though Nico was very clearly quiet and even a little withdrawn. Will himself, his younger self, spoke animatedly with gesticulating arms and a wide smile. Nico just stared at him a little dubiously. It was almost as though he didn't want to be there, didn't want to be seated around the hearth at all.

All of it was quiet, muffled as though Will was hearing the scene through a wall. He desperately wanted to know what was being said, his gaze and attention unable to drag away from his younger self and Nico seated almost warily at his side. He didn't have a chance to claw his way through the muffling, however, before it was eaten by flames and rapidly faded, images roiling like darting shadows and flaring flames.

Memories, Will realised. Memories of… Hestia? Was it Hestia who had seen it?

He didn't get a chance think on it further, for a moment later and the scene was changing. Almost identical, but with fewer demigods seated around the hearth. Will's attention was drawn unerringly to his younger self, to Nico at his side, and he didn't think it his imagination that Nico looked less awkward beside him. He even spoke a little in reply to Will's words. As Will watched, he saw himself sling an arm around Nico's shoulders. Nico shrugged him off with an exasperated shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, but Will only laughed, bumped his shoulder with his own and looped his arm around Nico's neck once more. This time Nico didn't push him away.

Then the scene was eaten by flames and torn apart into the shadows to be replaced. Another scene. Another night. More talking, another casual almost-embrace. Then it faded.

Another night, and Will stared with wide-eyed attentiveness as he saw Nico smile for the first time he could remember. It wasn't wide, but the foreignness of it made it beautiful. His younger self seemed delighted to have elicited the expression and this time when his arm wrapped around Nico's shoulders it was very definitely in a hug. Nico didn't protest to that.

Another night and then another, bare seconds glimpsed and in rapid succession, images fading into flames and shadows of what Will could only assume Hestia was showing him. Had she heard his thoughts? Was that why she showed him at all? Will saw himself grow just a little older, Nico at his side growing in synchrony. The faces of those around them changed but always, always they were there, and Will couldn't look away.

He saw a night of song in which Nico resolutely refused to sing despite the coaxing Will animatedly attempted, bumping him with his shoulder so incessantly that they were a jostling scuffle in minutes.

He saw the first time Nico laughed, when he was a little older, a little taller. It was a real laugh, not loud or exuberant but _real_. Will saw himself, a little older and a little taller too, practically glow before it.

He saw the first time Nico actually returned the casual hug of an arm around shoulders.

He saw the first time he kissed Nico.

It was little more than peck on the cheek, barely long enough to notice, but Will saw it. He saw that Nico didn't push him away either, as though it was perfectly natural for him to do it. As though they'd done it before. Had Will been able to feel his chest he would have clutched it with a desperate hand because it _hurt_. It hurt to see and yet not remember.

The scene changed and there were moments of utter comfort, leaning against one another. At one point, the image presented amidst a wreath of flames and shadows was of just the two of them and Will might have made a sound for what he saw but he couldn't hear it. Will's younger self lay sprawled across Nico's lap, Nico leaning back against on his hands and talking up to the sky. When Will said something, he dropped his gaze and he smiled down at him. Before flicking him sharply in the forehead, that was.

They were so clearly comfortable with one another, so at ease. So _natural_. Will wanted it so badly, but almost more than that he wanted to remember it.

Then it morphed away. It changed, and the roiling of the shadows and flames seemed to slow. Will was left staring at a small group of kids and teens, all sitting tensely in a vague ring. His attention was drawn unwaveringly to Nico, where for the first time he sat alone. He looked small, almost vulnerable in the way that Will had seen him half-curled in the Hades' cabin a week before when they'd shadow travelled together so unexpectedly. His arms looped around his knees, chin rested atop, and the way he stared at the fire made Will think he was meeting his gaze directly. Maybe he had been. Maybe he'd been staring at Hestia.

There was an unshakeable silence flooding the air around the hearth that even the muffling couldn't have produced, and for one horrible minute Will thought this was it. That this was the night after it had happened and that he wouldn't be coming back to the fire to sit and laugh and attempt to draw Nico into a casual embrace. Nico looked about the right age if he had to guess.

Except then the silence and stasis broke.

Will saw himself appear on the fringes of the shadows, just visible for the ruddy glow of the hearth, and stagger in his headlong flight to a halt. He didn't say anything but apparently he didn't need to. Nico seemed to realise he was there even without being called.

He was on his feet in an instant. Scrambling towards Will, it was almost as though he launched himself straight from the ground and across the distance between them in a single leap. A second later and Will saw himself caught in a fierce embrace, nearly thrown to the ground, saw Nico press his head into his shoulder for a moment before drawing away and –

The kiss he bestowed upon Will was so full of love and fear and relief that Will couldn't have looked away if he'd tried. He was vaguely aware of other campers staggering into the light of the hearth, of their fellow demigods rushing to their sides, of greetings and exclamations of relief. He didn't look to them. He didn't look away from where he saw himself wrapping his arms around Nico just as tightly in return as though he would never let go.

It faded after that. Will didn't want to ever look away, but fade it did, into darkness and shadow and not even a flicker of hearth flame. Will couldn't see anything but varying shades, impressions of figures that didn't look like people. He thought he might have been crying, felt like he wanted to, _needed_ to, if he wasn't already. But Will couldn't see, couldn't hear, to discern the truth of the matter.

Instead, he heard. Instead…

His own voice was almost unfamiliar, unintelligible in its franticness, and he was sure with unwavering certainty that this memory wasn't one provided by Hestia. _"I don't care. Just take them. Please."_

 _"You do not know of what you ask."_

 _"I do! I'm asking for your help, so_ help me _and you can have them! Anything you want, just save them."_

 _"…Anything?"_

 _"Yes!"_

 _"I take only the most important –"_

 _"I don't care. Nothing's more important now."_

 _"… As you wish. I pray you do not regret the hastiness of your actions, son of Apollo."_

 _"I won't. I won't regret it."_

And then it was gone. Then it was over, the echo of her words, the voice Will knew instinctively belonged to Mnemosyne. That was it, the final moments. Will didn't know how he heard them, because his memories of those moments should have been gone, but he suddenly didn't care. It hardly even mattered, because all those weeks ago, Nico had been right.

 _"You were the one who asked to forget!"_

He'd been right. And though Will doubted he would have been able to do anything otherwise, that the desperation in his own voice was genuine and it bespoke of unimaginable horror if he didn't go through with it, he regretted it. After what he'd come to learn in the past days, what he'd only just seen with Nico…

Blinking his eyes open, Will realised he was crying. No, not just crying; it would have been too small a word. Bodily sobs wracked through him, heaving his shoulders, struggling through a throat so thickened with emotion that he could hardly breathe. Will couldn't see either but for a blurry image of Hestia's fire and what could have been a face but could just as easily have been the flames themselves. Will didn't care. He couldn't even think to care.

Clapping a hand over his mouth, Will made a feeble attempt to stifle his choking sobs. It did little good. Only as he did, only when he'd regained a semblance of auditory capabilities and self-awareness, did he even hear Nico's voice.

"… wrong? Please, Will, it's okay, calm down. You're alright. Listen, it's okay, there's nothing wrong –"

But there was. There was so much wrong that Will didn't even know where to start. Turning blindly, Will reached for Nico. He reached and he didn't even care how it would look, whether Nico would recoil from him as though stung. He needed to touch him, to know he was actually there. To hold on even though everything, all of it, every single memory, was gone.

* * *

Will's words had thrown Nico. He'd been on the verge of slipping into his shadows simply because he didn't know what else to do, but somehow had managed to withhold from doing so.

Will had loved him? He'd told Reyna he'd loved him? A fierce, burning ache swept through Nico and it hurt to breathe. Nico had loved Will for years, had known he'd loved him, but Will… Will had never told him that. And Nico didn't know what to do with the information.

When Hestia arrived, it was a relief to have some sort of diversion. As soon as she drifted a tendril of her warm life towards Will in the clasp of her hand, Nico knew he would clock out for the count. It was relieving to be freed from the obligation of knowing what to do, what to say, but didn't make it any less disconcerting to see Will's eyes glaze over, his expression slacken. He seemed to slump in standing as though on the verge of falling to his knees.

It certainly didn't make it any easier when barely a minute later he started sobbing in near hysterics. Nico was so surprised, so horrified, that he was thrown from his aching despair and jerked backwards for a moment before lurching forwards. Not to touch Will, for he didn't think that would be right, not even after their conversation, but to do _something_.

He was babbling, Nico realised as his own voice rapidly rose in his ears. His hands reached for Will, paused, grasped the air in a fit of uselessness. He watched as Will seemed to crumple in on himself, nearly bending double and his face contorting into a mask of anguish. He looked physically pained.

Nico had never seen him like that before. He'd hardly even seen Will cry before. It was terrifying.

"Will, calm down," he attempted, though the pitch of his own voice likely did very little by way of calming. "Please, you're alright, just please stop crying before you –" Before he what? Nico didn't even know. "Will, stop, tell me – tell me what's wrong? Please, Will, it's okay, calm down. You're alright. Listen, it's okay, there's nothing wrong –"

He was cut off as Will suddenly spun, lurching towards him. In a mad grab that almost had Nico recoiling once more, he flung a hand towards him and grasped Nico's hand as though it was a lifeline. Then he crumbled to his knees and almost dragged Nico with him.

Nico didn't know what to do. He wasn't good at dealing with emotional outbursts, not even from himself. All he could do was stare down at Will, tongue-tied and scrambling for something to say, something to do to fix whatever was wrong, as Will cupped both his hands around Nico's and held on for dear life. He trembled in violent convulsions as he sobbed and for a second Nico thought he might actually start falling apart.

He didn't. He didn't shatter to pieces nor even burst out into hysterical utterances as Nico almost expected. Will simply sat on his knees, head bowed and sobbed, his fingers curled around Nico's and squeezing almost painfully. Nico couldn't move, wouldn't have even if he'd been able to, and could only stare down at Will with utter uselessness. He could protect. He could defend against monsters. But against the demons that were clearly plaguing Will he was redundant.

What had Hestia shown him? She must have shown him something for what her brief words had suggested, but now she was gone. Nico couldn't even ask her.

Slowly, finally, Will seemed to get a hold of himself. His sobs muffled, turned to hiccups, choked pants fading to erratic gasps. Eventually, after what could have been hours, he quietened. And then he spoke.

Nico couldn't hear what he said it was so quiet. Instinctively, with the fumbling struggle of not knowing what to do at all and his previous thoughts as to their conversation entirely abandoned, he lowered himself to his knees before Will. Peering at him wide-eyed, shifting his gaze from his still trembling fingers to his tear-streaked face, he leaned towards him. "What? What did you say?" Then, "Are you alright?"

Will uttered a sound that might have been an attempt at a laugh but came out sounding more like a sob. He shook his head. "No. No I'm not. That was – it was horrible."

Once more, Nico didn't know what to say. He didn't even know what Will had seen. "What can I do?" He said, his voice a croak with the realisation that there was very little that he _could_ do.

Again, Will shook his head. "There's nothing… nothing that can be…" He drew a deep breath and with what was clearly a struggle lifted his gaze. "There's nothing I can do to fix it, is there? I'll never remember."

He really was a mess. Face splotchy and damp, eyes reddened and eyelashes glued into points. His nose was smeared and the trembling of his bottom lip so reminiscent of a child's that it should have been a little pathetic.

It wasn't. It wasn't pathetic at all. Far from it even. Nico had many times wanted to approach Will and just touch him, just to make sure that he was still real, still alive, still _there_ even if he couldn't talk to him. Never, however, had he more longed to wrap him in a hug that had once been so aversive to him and never let him go.

Instead, Nico slowly shook his head. He wouldn't lie to Will by giving him false promises and useless hopes. He'd been forced to thrust aside those hopes himself years ago. "No. No, I don't think so."

Will squeezed his eyes together tightly and twin tears trickled from his eyes as though after his outburst that was all they could manage. When he opened them once more, he met Nico's gaze almost pleadingly. "How can it hurt so much? How can something I can't even remember hurt _so much_?"

Nico had nothing to say to that either, so he only shook his head once more. Will didn't seem to need a reply, however. Dropping his eyes down to their hands, to where he still clutched Nico's with bruising tightness, he briefly squeezed even tighter. "I miss you, Nico."

Nico flinched. Those simple words stung so much, like a slap in the face with an ice brick, because he'd wanted to hear them for so long. He'd wanted Will to remember so badly, to come back and to throw himself at Nico and speak just those words. He'd wanted him to _remember_. But Will didn't, and that made the words all the worse.

"I miss you," Will repeated, his voice cracking. "I can't even remember and I know I don't have the memories anymore, but I miss you _so much_."

It didn't make any sense. Not really. Nico didn't know what possessed Will to say what he did. But he didn't question it. There was sincerity in Will's words, in the grasp of his hands, the crinkle of his brow and the utter loss of his downcast expression as though he really had lost the world.

For that moment, Nico didn't care. He didn't care that Will didn't remember, that it would be selfish of him and that he might regret doing it later. Pulling his hands from Will's vice-like hold – a struggle because Will didn't seem inclined to ever let him go – he leaned forwards and wrapped himself around him. A tight embrace, just as he had before if only few enough times. Nico locked his arms around Will's neck, crawling across the slight distance between them, and pressed Will's face into his shoulder.

Will didn't even hesitate. Maybe it was the heavy emotion of the moment, the grief that had torn through him that Nico didn't even know the source of, the horror and pain that drew deep lines across his face that never should have been there. Nico had wanted to protect him from pain, to shield him from woes and the monsters that hounded him. But the life of a demigod was never free. One way or another, it would never leave them alone.

Nico should have known that.

"I'm so sorry," Will murmured into his shoulder. "I'm so, so sorry I forgot."

The words stung just as sharply in Nico's ears as those before. He didn't want to hear them, even if they were a kind of bittersweet. As Will wrapped his arms around Nico's waist, a gesture so distantly familiar that Nico felt his heart seize in his chest, he regretted everything that he couldn't do. And turning his lips into the side of Will's head, even though he knew he shouldn't, he impressed a short, fierce kiss.

"I miss you, too."


	9. Chapter 9 - Ghosts of Samhain Past

A/N: So this is the final chapter of my admittedly very hastily posted story! Thank you to all of the wonderful readers and reviewers, those I can name and those that I can't. **EsterOfPersia** and **Werewolf Darcy** , you guys are fantastic. Thank you both so, so much for you religious reviewing every chapter. You don't know how much it means - which is, quite honestly, a lot. You're both wonderful xx

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 **Chapter 9: Ghosts of Samhain Past**

Samhain began at sunset on October the thirty-first. As soon as the sun scraped below the horizon, the hour clocked the earthly-acknowledged beginning of winter.

For the demigods of Camp Half-Blood it meant night games. It meant rounds of trick-or-treat between the cabins guarded by the head counsellors. It meant dressing up in ghoulish outfits – though none quite so morbid as to resemble Greek monsters – and make fun of one another. Candy was consumed in droves, carved jack o' lanterns outfitted with candles, faux cobwebs strung and lights cast to decorate the grounds and illuminate the scene.

It was a mockery of fears rather than a sombre acknowledgement of them. Camp Half-Blood was a safe haven, an escape from the threats of the world that would forever be afflicted upon every demigod. No one had the time for sobriety, not when there was already so much of it.

When midnight struck, however, the true Samhain began. As one, the demigods dispersed, took themselves to their cabins and barred the doors. Food was set aside for potential undead who slipped through the veil, but it was more of a precaution, a distraction should those undead manage to escape the protections already placed. The rituals of Camp Half-Blood were different to the traditional, but they were maintained just as faithfully. All of it, the food, the retreat, was but a precaution, and only for the welfare of the sleepers that sought their beds. For at midnight, when veil was thinnest, the first of the ghosts slipped through.

Few stood to watch them arrive. Few stood alongside the children of Hades as they faced them, as Nico strode amongst the translucent figures ad uttered whispering words, grazing his fingers through their insubstantial forms to send them back from whence they'd come. There were men and women, children and elderly, those newly deceased and others that wore medieval armour or heavy Victorian skirts. Every one of them turned to Nico as he drew towards them, and like moths drawn to a flame seemed to seek the dismissal his passing hands cast.

The Ghost King, they called him. Samhain was one of the nights where the truth of that title was most apparent.

Only at sunrise did the tide of ghosts dissipate. It was a long night, riddled with mournful and regretful faces that murmured words that longed to be translated to those they'd left behind. They wouldn't ever be spoken aloud, never be heard by their intended recipients. Most of those they longed to speak to had already passed on themselves.

And just like that it would be over.

Nico stood in the middle of the Camp green before the hearth of Hestia when his stand was complete. He stared at the flames flickering before him unblinkingly, and to an onlooking observer may have seemed but listless and contemplative of the night before, even simply wearied.

He was not. Such things didn't play upon his mind.

Only Will stood at his side. Will hadn't left it for the entirety of the night, even as he walked through the ghosts. Such shadowing wasn't realistic, would have to cease eventually, but not yet. Will was a persistent person, and stubborn to boot. He wouldn't be leaving any time soon.

After that night, as soon as the first glimmer of sunlight rose and turned the remaining ghosts back to the Underworld, Will took Nico's hand. He held it with the force of someone intent on never letting go.

"You'll have to go back soon," Nico said, not sparing him a glance from Hestia's flickering flames.

"I know."

A pause. "It's not like you can just abandon everything. You have a life."

"Yeah, I know."

"College, friends, a job and a future. Where that is – you can't have both."

Another pause. Then, "I can."

"Will."

"I can try. I don't know how I'll manage, but I can try."

Nico turned slowly towards him, meeting the weary gaze Will settled upon him. "That's unrealistic."

"Maybe."

"You'll end up killing yourself."

"That, I won't. I doubt you'd let me."

"Me?"

"Will you abandon me? If I say I'll try?"

Nico didn't answer to that. They both knew what he would say.

"Just let me try, Nico. Just… don't force me have to try to forget again."

Nico's was the hand that squeezed Will's this time, though it twinged at the bruises dotting his fingers left by Will's grasp from the previous day. "I'm never going to force you to forget, Will."

Another pause. Another silence. Then, "Will you help me?"

"With what? I'm not exactly a med student."

Will offered a crooked smile that was just as weary as his eyes. Genuine, though. True. "I want to try to remember. Or at least to learn everything it is that I've forgotten."

"That's an impossible task," Nico murmured.

"Not impossible. It'll just take a very long time. And I'm hoping… that you'll help me."

It was Will's turn to squeeze Nico's hand this time and Nico didn't object. He'd pushed him away enough as it was. It was too hard to keep on trying.

More silence, but an expectant silence. When Nico didn't seem intent on filling it, Will turned fully towards him, took a step closer to draw his full attention. Not that he didn't already have it, even if Nico stared at the fire. Of course he did. "Nico, I know you don't believe me when I tell you that I know you. I might not be able to remember you, but I feel like I do. The feelings are still there. And I want that."

He stared at Nico intently for a moment and Nico, gaze drawn from the fire, couldn't look away. He'd never been able to look away – or at least not for a very long time. Will's voice was barely a murmur when he continued. "If you're not going to tell me – and I'll understand if you don't want to – can you at least let me try again? Make new memories. Start over, even?" A pause, then, "Please?"

What could Nico say to that? Only one thing really. He'd known even before Will had asked what he would say. Closing his eyes, he sighed. "We'll try."

That, it would seem, was good enough. For now.


End file.
